My dad worked in advertising, and one of his perks was free magazine subscriptions to just about every type of magazine you could think of, and there were tons of magazine titles when I was a kid in the 1950s. I liked looking at the pictures in Life, Look, and the Saturday Evening Post, but my favorites were the women’s magazines, especially McCall’s, because my younger sister and I loved paper dolls.
Teri Pettit has a wonderful web site where she shares all the Betsy McCall paper dolls from 1951-1961, plus many other vintage paper dolls and activity books. Her images are high resolution and have been scaled to print on letter-sized paper. Head over there by clicking on her image below.
I love to see how Betsy changed through the years! She was my favorite too! Hugs and hugs! Mickie
Thanks for this post. I adore paperdolls. I used to spend hours making them. I still have a suitcase full from my childhood. Betsy was one of my favorites.
I looked forward to Mom sharing Betsy McCall with me!
Oh, how I loved the Betsy McCall paper dolls! I have one of the older pages framed in my sewing room now. I’ve been to Teri’s site before, it’s fabulous!
I loved Betsy McCall paper dolls, too. My best friend and I would make more clothes for our Betsy’s from old Sears and Montgomery Ward catalogues in the early 1950’s. They were so much fun! It saddens my today that little girls do not play with paper dolls much any more if at all. Computers have gotten in the way of sweet innocent childrens play in most cases.
I have a few old McCalls magazines with the Betsy McCall paper doll page still in them. That is a great idea to frame one of them and hang it in my sewing room!