Raggedy Ann

Raggedy Ann is a character created by American writer Johnny Gruelle (1880–1938) that appeared in a series of books he wrote and illustrated for young children. Raggedy Ann is a rag doll with red yarn for hair and a triangle nose. The character was created in 1915, as a doll, and was introduced to the public in the 1918 book Raggedy Ann Stories. When a doll was marketed with the book, the concept had great success. A sequel, Raggedy Andy Stories (1920), introduced the character of her brother, Raggedy Andy. Further characters such as Beloved Belindy, a black mammy doll, were featured as dolls and characters in books.
The exact details of the origins of the Raggedy Ann doll and related stories, which were created by Johnny Gruelle, are not specifically known, although numerous myths and legends about the doll's origins have been widely repeated. Gruelle biographer and Raggedy Ann historian Patricia Hall notes that the dolls have "found themselves at the center of several legend cycles—groups of stories that, while containing kernels of truth, are more myth than they are history. What makes this even more intriguing is that fact that Johnny Gruelle, either unwittingly or with the great sense of humor he was known for, initiated many of these legends, a number of which are continuously repeated as the factual history of Raggedy Ann and Andy."
Hall further explains that according to an oft-repeated myth, Gruelle's daughter Marcella brought down from her grandmother's attic a faceless cloth doll on which the artist drew a face, and that Gruelle suggested that Marcella's grandmother sew a shoe button for a missing eye. Hall says the date of this supposed occurrence is given as early as 1900 and as late as 1914, with the locale variously given as suburban Indianapolis, Indiana, downtown Cleveland, Ohio, or rural Connecticut. More likely, as Gruelle's wife Myrtle reported, it was her husband who retrieved a long-forgotten, homemade rag doll from the attic of his parents' Indianapolis home sometime around the turn of the twentieth century before the couple's daughter was born. Although the incident is unconfirmed, Myrtle Gruelle recalled, "There was something he wanted from the attic. While he was rummaging around for it, he found an old rag doll his mother had made for his sister. He said then that the doll would make a good story." Myrtle Gruelle also indicated that her husband "kept [the doll] in his mind until we had Marcella. He remembered it when he saw her play [with] dolls ... He wrote the stories around some of the things she did. He used to get ideas from watching her."
Additionally, Gruelle did not create Raggedy Ann as a tribute to his daughter following her death at 13 from an infected vaccination. Hall notes Gruelle's May 28, 1915, U.S. patent D47789 application for the design of the prototype that became the Raggedy Ann doll was already in progress around the time that Marcella fell ill, and the artist received final approval by the U.S. Patent office on September 7, 1915. Nonetheless, the anti-vaccination movement adopted Raggedy Ann as a symbol, though Marcella died from an infected vaccination, not from the side effects of the vaccination itself.
On June 17, 1915, shortly after submitting his patent application for the doll's design, Johnny Gruelle applied for a registered trademark for the Raggedy Ann name, which he created by combining words from two of James Whitcomb Riley poems, "The Raggedy Man" and "Little Orphant Annie". (Riley was a well-known Hoosier poet and a Gruelle family friend and neighbor from the years when they resided in Indianapolis.) The U.S. Patent Office registered Gruelle's trademark application (107328) for the Raggedy Ann name on November 23, 1915.
Raggedy Ann Stories (1918), written and illustrated by Johnny Gruelle and published by the P. F. Volland Company, was the first in a series of books about his cloth doll character and her friends. The book's first edition also included Gruelle's own version of the doll's origins and the related stories. Two years after the publication of the first Raggedy Ann book, Gruelle introduced Raggedy Ann's brother, Raggedy Andy, in Raggedy Andy Stories (1920).
Although the female members of Gruelle's family may have made a small number of initial versions of the Raggedy Ann doll in Norwalk, Connecticut, to help market the related books, Gruelle soon established a merchandising agreement with P. F. Volland Company, his primary publisher, to begin commercially manufacturing, selling, and promoting a mass-produced version of the doll.
In addition to his patent application U.S. patent D47789 in 1915 for the design of what became the Raggedy Ann doll, Gruelle patented his design U.S. patent D56149 for a generic male doll in 1920. A short time after its literary debut in 1920, Raggedy Andy appeared as a commercially made doll, marketed by Volland.
Following the success of the first Raggedy Ann book, Gruelle continued to author and illustrate at least one Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy story each year until his death in 1938. In addition to books Gruelle also wrote lyrics for musical compositions that were published as sheet music and songbooks for children. These works included "Raggedy Ann's Sunny Songs" (1930) which was set to music by former U. S. Treasury Secretary William H. Woodin.
In his later years Gruelle collaborated with his son, Worth, on illustrations for some of his later books such as Raggedy Ann and the Golden Meadow (1935) and on a series of illustrated Raggedy Ann proverbs that were syndicated in newspapers. By 1938, the year that Johnny Gruelle died, his first Raggedy Ann book had sold more than 3 million copies.
Raggedy Ann doll sales were also growing. The P. F. Volland Company's initial order of 24 dozen dolls from the Non-Breakable Toy Company, the doll's early manufacturer, increased to about 3,200 dolls within the first eight months of production. With its growing popularity, Gruelle gave Volland the exclusive rights to manufacture and sell the dolls as long as it remained the exclusive publisher of his books.
In 1935 Gruelle brought suit against Mollye Goldman (Gruelle vs. Goldman) after her company, Molly-'Es Doll Outfitters, continued to manufacture unauthorized versions of the Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls. Goldman's attorney argued that Gruelle's design patent for Raggedy Ann had expired in 1929, and Gruelle did not apply for a design patent or a trademark for a doll specifically named Raggedy Andy. The U.S. Patent office registered Goldman's application for a trademark for her Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy dolls in 1935. Her patent application U.S. patent D96382 for her Raggedy Andy design was granted on May 7, 1935. Goldman's versions of Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy closely resembled the Gruelle-designed rag dolls, which he had authorized the Exposition Doll and Toy Manufacturing Company to manufacture. Gruelle brought suit against Goldman for trademark infringement in October 1936, but the case was dismissed. He won the lawsuit on appeal in 1937. In the appellate court's option handed down on December 23, 1937, Goldman's company, Molly-'Es Doll Outfitters, could not legally manufacture dolls named Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy. Goldman was ordered to provide restitution to Gruelle.
Following Gruelle's death in 1938, Myrtle (Swann) Gruelle, his widow, took further legal action to secure the rights to his works, trademarks, and patents, including those relating to Raggedy Ann and Andy. She also continued to promote Raggedy Ann and Andy, among Gruelle's other literary characters, through the Johnny Gruelle Company, which also published the author's books for several years. (P. F. Volland, his primary publisher, had discontinued its book publishing business during the Great Depression.)
By the end of the 1940s, sales of Raggedy Ann-related books exceeded 7 million copies. The Indianapolis-based Bobbs-Merrill Company became the authorized publisher and licensor for Raggedy Ann-related literary works in 1962, and the Knickerbocker Toy Company began manufacturing the Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls in the early 1960s. Bobbs-Merrill eventually became part of Macmillan Inc. and later Simon & Schuster, while Hasbro acquired Knickerbocker Toys. As such, Hasbro holds the trademark for the Raggedy Ann stuffed doll, while all other trademarks are claimed by Simon & Schuster, at present a subsidiary of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts. The original U.S. patent D47789 for the 1915 doll design, as well as the Raggedy Ann Stories (1918) and Raggedy Andy Stories (1920) books, are in the public domain, their copyrights having expired.
The Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy dolls and their related memorabilia have become sought-after collectors' items. In addition to the dolls and books, other related items continue to be produced including adaptations of the stories into comic books, audio recordings, animated films, and television and theatrical productions.
The Raggedy Ann doll was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame in Rochester, New York, on March 27, 2002. Raggedy Andy was inducted 5 years later on November 8, 2007.
Johnny Gruelle, Raggedy Ann's creator, authored and/or illustrated dozens of related works. Many other books were released and in some cases credited to Gruelle after his death in 1938. In addition, numerous works have been written or illustrated by others such as Ethel Hays, who illustrated most of the Saalfield Publishing Company's Raggedy Ann-related stories published from 1944.
A collection of twenty books published by Lynx, with each story containing a lesson, such as maintaining friendship when someone moves away or why parents must go to work. Raggedy Ann and Andy live in Marcella's playroom with many other toys such as Babette the French doll, Raggedy Dog, The Camel with the Wrinkled Knees, Sunny Bunny, Bubbles the Clown, Tim the Toy Soldier and more.
Many subsequent adaptations of the Raggedy Ann and Andy books have been published, in addition to the characters appearing in other media formats.
Although the female members of Gruelle's family may have originally handmade a few of the versions of the Raggedy Ann doll in Norwalk, Connecticut, to help market the related books, Gruelle soon established a merchandising agreement with P. F. Volland Company, the primary publisher of his books, to manufacture, sell, and promote a mass-produced, commercial version of the Raggedy Ann doll. Early Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls were manufactured by different companies and not produced as matched sets.
Between 1918 and 1926, the Non-Breakable Toy Company of Muskegon, Michigan made more than 75,000 dolls for Volland. By the late 1920s Volland's orders for Raggedy Ann dolls from its manufacturer had reached 4,000 per month. When Volland ceased operations during the Great Depression it had already sold more than 150,000 dolls and nearly 2 million Raggedy Ann books.
In 1935, Gruelle granted permission to the Exposition Doll and Toy Manufacturing Company to manufacture and sell authorized versions of the Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls. From 1935 until 1937 Molly-'Es Doll Outfitters manufactured and sold unauthorized versions of the Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls until a legal decision handed down in Gruelle v (Mollye) Goldman prohibited Molly-'Es Dolls from further manufacturing and sales of the dolls.
Gruelle's hometown of Arcola, Illinois, is the former home of the annual Raggedy Ann and Andy Festival and the Raggedy Ann and Andy Museum. The museum was closed and the festival discontinued in 2009. Some of the museum's contents were donated to Strong National Museum of Play. Other aspects of the collection were moved to the Rockome Gardens theme park in Arcola.