Paper doll book:Mattel's Baby First Step

The Whitman Publishing Company entered the paper doll business in a round-about way. In 1916 the Hamming-Whitman Publishing Company of Chicago defaulted on its bills, and its main creditor, Western Publishing Company in Racine, Wisconsin, acquired all of the Chicago outfit's assets. Western established a subsidiary it named Whitman and continued publishing Hamming-Whitman's books for children. Soon it added a number of other products like boxed games, jigsaw puzzles, and paper dolls. Whitman's first paper doll set featured "The Dolls That You Love" and included six dolls pretty dolls and their clothes. Whitman remained one of the more prolific paper dolls suppliers throughout much of the 20th century, and young girls sought especially its sets of Hollywood stars and celebrity singers, dancers, and comic strip characters. At midcentury, Whitman added TV stars to the paper dolls it offered. The Whitman name continued to appear on paper dolls until 1983.