The First Little Shaver dolls were the work of Dorothy and Elise Shaver, two sisters from Arkansas who moved to New York City in the 1920s. Elise made the dolls and Dorothy sold them to Lord & Taylor and other high-end shops, parleying the small cloth figures into something of a fad. Fashionable young women carried the dolls tucked under their arms as they traveled about the city. By the 1940s, the Alexander Doll Company offered Little Shaver dolls as part of its line of well-dressed cloth dolls. The 2000 reproduction of the Madame Alexander favorite suggests the enduring popularity of the doll.