A Short History of Betsy McCall
After emigrating from Scotland, James McCall and his wife, Belle, started a tailor shop and a pattern company.
They soon realized that it would pay to advertise so in 1876 they started a four-page pamphlet, called The Queen—Illustrated Magazine of Fashion to spotlight their patterns.
After his death in 1884, the magazine was renamed McCall’s Magazine, the Queen of Fashion.
In 1897 it was renamed McCall's.
I believe that Marvin Pierce -- father of Barbara Bush and grandfather of George W. Bush – who became president of the McCall's company in 1946 was in charge when Betsy McCall started in 1951.
In 1987, McCall's was sold to publisher Dale Lang.
He sold it in 1989 to the New York Times.
They sold it to Gruner & Jahr in the mid-'90s.
It became Rosie in April, 2001 and went out of publication soon after.
Before the advent of Betsy McCall, they had other paper dolls and cutouts. Their first paper doll was in June 1904.
http://www.paperdollparade.com/ has a nice Baby McCall from 1926 paper doll on their page.
Two sites that have large collections of Betsy McCall graphics are:
I did the majority of my research at the University of Oregon Library.
I do not have any of these products for sale nor am I affiliated with the McCall Corporation. This began as a research project I was doing at school and I got hooked on Betsy and decided to post my paper. If I have used any graphics that belong to anyone, please let me know and I will remove them from this page. When this project is completed, I will include a link to a betsy.doc file so it can be downloaded as a Word file.
Many of these products are offered on e-bay.com. Just search for Betsy McCall.
I would love to include links to sites that offer these paper dolls for sale. Please e-mail me your link and I will include it on a links page.
Please e-mail me if you can provide any information I do not have and I will give the contributor credit. If you find errors, please e-mail me and I will make the correction.
These are two of the cutouts that I found during my research.
Snow White, the Prince and the Ugly Queen
A Fairy Play
Drawings by John B Gruelle.
Story by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
There is a story on page 24
with suggestions to
enact your own play
September 1911 edition page 23
A Circus Made to Order
Cut-Outs for Little People
By Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
Drawings by John B. Gruelle
Story and instructions on page 22
March 1912 edition page 23