page_title: American Character Doll Company
section_title: Corporate history
hierarchical_section_title: American Character Doll Company / History / Corporate history
context_page_description: The American Character Doll Company was an American toy company specializing in dolls. Their most popular dolls included "Tiny Tears," "Tressy," "Butterball Doll", "Sweet Sue," and "Toodles." Founded in 1919, the company's fortunes peaked in the mid-20th century, as they sold millions of dolls exclusively to retailers and mail order houses such as Sears and Montgomery Ward. American Character Dolls went bankrupt in 1968, with their assets acquired by the Ideal Toy Company.
context_section_description: The American Doll and Toy Corporation was established in 1919 by Russian Jewish immigrant brothers Jacob and Max Brock, and their partner Ed Schaefaer, with many of the Brock relatives occupying key positions at the company. The company used the trade names "Aceedeecee" and "ACDC". American Character Dolls' factory was in Brooklyn; the company operated a store on East 17th Street in New York City in the late 1920s.  By the late 1930s, the company's manufacturing plant, comprising 130,000 square feet, was in Easthampton, Massachusetts.
  The company made the news in 1937 when it was ordered by the Federal Trade Commission to stop claiming that its patented "paratex" (a hard rubber made from a "secret formula") was superior to composition dolls (popularly made by American Character's competitor the Ideal Toy Company).
  In 1951, American Character partnered with competitors the Ideal Toy Company and the Alexander Doll Company to establish the United States-Israeli Toy and Plastic Corporation, designed to produce material for toys in Israel and the U.S. The new corporation's offices shared space with American Character.
  In 1954, American Character Dolls established a $2,000 annual fellowship at Teachers College, Columbia University, known as the Frances Horwich Graduate Fellowship in Early Childhood Education. In 1954 the company was awarded a patent for a doll that "breathes, sheds tears, drinks from a bottle, blows bubbles, and even smokes."
  By 1967 the company's fortunes were in decline, with unsecured claims said to be approximately $1.4 million. Settlements were arranged in March and June 1967, and the company continued to operate on a limited scale. Shortly thereafter, in 1968, American Character Dolls filed for bankruptcy and went out of business. Molds for some toys were sold to Mattel and Ideal Toy Company, which acquired the defunct company's dyes, patents, and trademarks.
caption: Dressing and packing dolls at Paragon Manufacturing Company in Easthampton, Massachusetts (1937)
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