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Kimberly Neeley
Mr. Aguilar
American Studies, Period 6
12 December 2003
Rose O’ Neill’s Kewpie Life
In 1909, Rose O’Neill’s Kewpie dolls were a
major hit to the children around the world. Kewpies showed that all was good and there was no evil at
all. Rose first started the Kewpies through comics. These comics showed that Kewpies stood for
happiness, love and joy. Rose O’Neill called them Kewpies after Cupid. According to Merriam Webster,
Cupid is the Roman God of love. Rose O’Neill creator of Kewpie dolls wanted to spread her love
of the dolls to children. OR OTHER INTRO: Kewpie dolls were a hit back in the early 1900's. Their
creator Rose O'Neill invented them in 1909. Her Kewpie comics were the best to ever be a hitof
children around the world. Her dolls created happiness, love and joy in Kewpie doll owners life
because the dolls promoted every one being good not bad. They also showed everyone was good at heart.
The name originated from the word Cupid. According to Merriam Webster, Cupid is the Roman God of love.
Which is why Kewpie dolls promote love, happines and joy.
Rose Cecil O’Neill, the Kewpie creator, was
born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania on 24 June 1874 to William Patrick and Asenath Cecelia. Rose
started her career as an artist early in life. At seventeen, she started to illustrate “Arabian
Nights” for a Colorado magazine called, The Great Divide. She had to use the initials “C.R.O.”
because she was a girl and she had to disguise her name, because girls were thought not to be
intelligent and couldn’t draw or write. By the age of nineteen she had released her first novel
Catillsta, which included sixty-three of her drawings. In 1896, she was married to her first
husband, Gary Latham, a male model. Gary Latham would go to offices and collect her money before
she could, so he left Rose with no money at all. She divorced him five years later. The Catholic
Church later excommunicated Rose, because of her divorce. In 1902, she had
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met another man named Harry Leon Wilson,the editor ofPuck, they were wed. Harry Leon Wilson was
thought to be having an affair with another women. Harry sometimes went through major mood swings and Rose
was silenced during that time. In 1908, Rose divorced Harry Len Wilson, and moved to New York.
In 1909, Rose created her dolls, the Kewpie doll. Rose O’Neill went to Paris to attend an art school.
While she was in Paris, she illustrated two Kewpie comics a month and sent them to magazines to
publish. Rose went to Berlin, Germany she stayed near some doll factories until she had made twelve
dolls. She advertised her dolls through Kelloggs’ Corn Flakes, Edison Phonographs, and Oxydol
Detergent, and ninety-eight Jell-O ads. Throughout 1904 and 1930 Rose published more books including
four novels and one book of poetry. She had returned to New York in 1936 to take care of her
mother who was sick. In 1940 Rose she made a little Buddha Kewpie called Ho-Ho, although in 1941 the
Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, so the doll never became popular. On 6 April 1944, Rose Cecil O’Neill
died at the age of seventy in Springfield Missouri, after suffering some mild strokes. In honor of Rose
they put on a Kewpiesta every year in Branson in April. Rose said that Kewpie came to her in a
dream. Rose did not know this but she was the country’s highest paid female illustrator before
the Kewpies came out. She made one and a half million dollars. Rose had two philosophies on the
Kewpies. One was “Kewpie philosophy takes the unwieldiness out of wisdom, puts cheer into charity
and draws the fangs of philanthropy,” said Rose. Another philosophy was, “The Kewpie philosophy is
to do good deeds in a funny way that is brought out in character,” said Rose. She used her Kewpie also
to promote women’s suffrage.
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The first Kewpie doll was a paper doll, a Kewpie “Kut-Out”. The Kewpies were created in 1909.
The Kewpies have very distinct characteristics for example their head is molded with a small bit of
hair at the top, some have wings that are either blue or pink, legs are together, small
feet, starfish type hands, large eyes, mouth is painted into a smile, and they have a label on
their feet or on their chest. They are about seven inches or eighteen centimeters about the size of a
normal palm. The dolls are usually made of bisque, which is a cheaply made doll. They were sold at
amusement parks, as souvenirs. Some other dolls are made of celluloid, which is made of bisque, wood
pulp, chalk, and celluloid. These dolls were sold in the United States. Other Kewpie dolls are made
our of cloth, rubber, vinyl, and composition and zylonite. Kewpies have been compared to Mickey
Mouse. The MerKewps, Kewpie Mermaids were never made into dolls but they were in Rose’s comics.
Kewpies started fashion trends, because women that were fashion conscience plucked their eyebrows to
look like Kewpies, which looks like a small dotted line not even reaching to either sides of the eye.
The dolls are made popular throughout adults and children. Surprisingly more adults are collectors
than children. There is also a Kewpie dog named Doodle Dog who is a very rare dog. Kewpies come in
various types including Kewpie reading a book, one holding flowers, one sitting in a basket, a Kewpie
with an “O” shaped mouth, one with arms folded, pilot, one lying on its back, falling Kewpie,
cowboy, Bride and Groom Kewpie, traveling kewpie, Red Cross Kewpie, and a regular Kewpie doll. The
price range today for a Kewpie doll about fifty dollars for a two-inch movable limbed doll to six
thousand nine hundred dollars for a rare four-inch Kewpie soldier coming out of an egg. Kewpie dolls
were also perfume bottles, salt shakers, and there were even plates with Kewpies on them,
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there were also Kewpie clocks with Rose’s signature engraved on the back of the clock. The dolls
symbolize all that is good and happy.
Kewpie comics took place in Kewpieville, where no story ever had a sad ending. In 1910 Kewpies were
in a “Dotty Darling and the Kewpies’ series” each story told the stories of Dotty Darling and their
Kewpie pals. They looked elfish in the comics. The Kewpie comics appeared in the Ladies’ Home Journal,
Truth, Collier’s Weekly, Harpers Monthly, Good Housekeeping, Weekly, Bazaar, Puck, Women’s Home
Companion, and The Great Divide. She had paper dolls that were printed in the Sunday comics; the
dolls were printed on both the front side and the back.
Works Cited
Unknown author. “Rose O’Neill’s Biography.” http://www.members.aol.com/roseoneillkewpie/biography.htm
Fitzgerald, Toni. “Once Upon a Dream.” Doll Reader Feb. 2003: 47-50
Goodfellow, Caroline. The Ultimate Doll Book . London: Dorling Kindersley, 1993.
Moyer, Patsy. Doll Values: Antique to Modern Seventh Edition. Paducah, KY: Counterbooks, a division of Schroeder Publishing Co. Inc., 2003.
Wright, Joan. “Kewpies Capture Hearts.” http://www.myantiquemall.com/Aqstories/kewpies/kewpies.html
