ABSTRACT
Paper dolls were first sold in Germany, France, and England in 1790. Early on, sheets of them were bound together in sets, resembling our paper doll books. Advertising proved to be a particularly fertile area for paper dolls. Refinements in color printing in 1880 brought about a drastic reduction in the cost of manufacturing paper dolls. The Chicago Record-Herald started including them in 1901; soon many periodicals were utilizing them as a means of heightening reader interest, thereby ushering in the heyday for paper dolls. The Ladies' Home Journal also introduced the paper doll format of Rose O'Neill's Kewpies in 1909. The continued association of paper dolls and advertising reflected the socio-economic mores of a bygone age. In the early decades of the twentieth century, most advertising was done in women's magazines or in newspapers; therefore, the bonuses-such as paper dolls-were of a kind to appeal to females of all ages.
