Doll

Artist and free-thinker Rose O'Neill introduced her Kewpies in an illustrated story in a 1909 issue of "Ladies' Home Journal." O'Neill's Kewpies resembled the ancient Cupid, the mischievous god of love and beauty, though the artist's Kewpies sought to do good rather than make trouble. In the stories O'Neill created, the Kewpies worked as "social housekeepers," caring for society's forgotten children and protecting the working poor from the harsh life of the cities. Kewpies, for example, championed women's rights. Kewpies stories remained a popular feature of women's magazines well into the 1920s. By World War I, Kewpies were the best-known characters of American popular culture, and likenesses of them appeared in dolls and toys, and advertising, and on textiles, china, and other consumer goods.