Madame Alexander is a American company based in New York, established in 1923.
The company is named after its founder, Beatrice Alexander, a dollmaker who began her company in one-room studio. By the mid-30s, the Madame Alexander Doll Company had become a pioneer in American doll manufacturing, listed as one of the country’s top dollmakers. Though the company’s origins were in porcelain and cloth dolls, in 1947 they would begin manufacturing hard plastic dolls, moving to vinyl in the 1960s, which makes up the majority of dolls sold today.
The company is notable for their licensed dolls. They produced the first doll based on a licensed character, Scarlett O’Hara from Gone with the Wind, in 1939. Dolls of Scarlett, among Little Women, The Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, and other storybook titles, have been produced ever since. They are also known for producing dolls based on real people, such as the Dionne quintuplets and Queen Elizabeth II. Beatrice Alexander herself sold the company in 1988, before her passing in 1990; the company would later be sold to Kahn Lucas in 2012.
Nowadays, Madame Alexander continues to produce baby dolls, fashion dolls, and collector dolls, including recreations of classic lines (such as Cissy and Wendy). They have also collaborated with Sonja Hartmann and Isaac Mizrahi on doll collections in recent years, as well as brands such as Marvel and Disney.
