Beatrice Alexander
| Beatrice Alexander | |
|---|---|
Publicity shot of Beatrice Alexander for the Alexander Doll Company, circa 1920s
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| Born |
Bertha Alexander March 9, 1895 New York City |
| Died | October 3, 1990 (aged 95) Palm Beach, Florida |
| Nationality | United States |
| Other names | Madame Alexander |
| Education | Washington Irving High School, New York City |
| Occupation | Founder and owner |
| Years active | 1923–1988 |
| Employer | Alexander Doll Company |
| Known for | Collectible dolls |
| Spouse(s) | Philip Behrman |
| Children | 2 |
Beatrice Alexander Behrman (March 9, 1895 – October 3, 1990), known as Madame Alexander, was an American dollmaker. Founder and owner of the Alexander Doll Company in New York City for 65 years, she introduced new materials and innovative designs to create lifelike dolls based on famous people and characters in books, films, music, and art. Among her notable creations were the Scarlett O'Hara doll, the Dionne quintuplets dolls, and a 36-doll set of the royal family and their guests at the 1953 coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. During her stewardship, the company produced more than 5,000 dolls, many of which became collector's items.
She was born Bertha Alexander on New York City's Lower East Side to Hannah Pepper, an Austrian native who had emigrated to the United States via Russia. Bertha's father either died in a pogrom in Russia from which her mother escaped, or he emigrated with Hannah and died in New York when Bertha was about one and a half years old. In New York, Hannah remarried to Maurice Alexander, a Russian–Jewish immigrant, whom Bertha considered her real father, and had three more daughters. Maurice operated the first doll hospital in the United States, repairing the porcelain dolls of wealthy clients.
In June 1912, shortly after graduating from Washington Irving High School, Bertha married Philip Behrman, who worked in the office of a hat company. Bertha enrolled in a six-month commercial course and then began working as a bookkeeper for the Irving Hat Stores.
I didn't want to make just ordinary dolls with unmeaning, empty smiles on their painted lips and a squeaky way of saying 'mama' after you pinched. I wanted to do dolls with souls. You have no idea how I labored over noses and mouths so that they would look real and individual.
Alexander crafted her first doll during World War I. Due to the embargo on German-made products during wartime, porcelain dolls were no longer available and Maurice's doll hospital was on precarious footing. Alexander suggested creating a Red Cross Nurse cloth doll with hand-painted, three-dimensional facial features. She and her sisters sewed a variety of these dolls to sell in the doll hospital, priced at $1.98 apiece, thus rescuing the family's livelihood. She and her sisters continued producing cloth dolls after the war ended.
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