Bad Kosen--Käthe Kruse

In 1905 a German woman named Käthe Kruse began making crude, cloth baby dolls for her children. These experiments were a reaction to the elaborate, hard-bodied commercial dolls. Guided by her husband Max, a sculptor, she developed a molded and painted cloth head on a stuffed body. In 1910 she presented a baby doll in a display of homemade toys at the Tietz department store in Berlin. Her doll was a big hit, especially with American buyers. Kämmer & Reinhardt offered to make the dolls, but the results were so disappointing that she canceled the contract and began producing the dolls herself. As the orders increased, her family moved to a larger home in Bad Kosen that served also as a workshop. She hired workers from the area to assist her. The faces of her dolls were realistic but less expressive than those of the character dolls. The bodies were proportionate, moveable, and firmly stuffed. Their clothes were carefully crafted miniatures of those worn by German children. Kruse's dolls were luxury items, sometimes selling for ten times the cost of a bisque doll. About 1929, her dolls began to wear hand-tied wigs. The dolls were often sold in boy/girl pairs or a doll could be dressed in either boy's or girl's clothes. In more recent years the materials used in making her dolls has been changed to cut costs; but her family continues to produce her "child for a child."