Barbie, that tall blonde turn­ing 61 this year, still has wide eyes and an invit­ing smile, but the sto­ry behind the silken doll is any­thing but sac­cha­rine.

The 10th and youngest child of Pol­ish immi­grants who set­tled in Col­orado, Ruth Han­dler found­ed Mat­tel and built it into an inter­na­tion­al­ly renowned toy empire with her toy design­er hus­band Elliott. But when she want­ed to sell an ​“adult-bod­ied” doll for aspi­ra­tional lit­tle girls in the 1950’s, she squashed naysay­ers and pushed it through with her trade­mark tenac­i­ty. The biog­ra­phy reads like a well-researched tabloid into the seami­er cor­ners of the toy indus­try and Ruth’s own per­son­al­i­ty. She could inspire love or hate but nev­er neu­tral­i­ty.

Join us for a discussion about this colorful portrait of an extraordinary female entrepreneur, and what became a cultural phenomenon.

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