Madame Alexander: The Creator of the Iconic American Doll

This picture-book biography follows Beatrice Alexander, later known professionally as Madame Alexander. The daughter of white Jewish immigrants, she grew up on New York’s Lower East Side and helped in her father’s doll hospital, where dolls were cleaned, repaired, made, and sold. Surrounded by doll parts, she imagined dolls of her own, including durable ones. During World War I, material shortages led her to make cloth dolls dressed as nurses and in old-fashioned clothing. After the war, she sold baby dolls modeled on her daughter to FAO Schwarz, beginning a growing doll-design business.