Hello, welcome to the witness history podcast from the BBC World Service.

We're going back to 1959 when the Barbie doll made her debut.

The plastic creation went on to take the world by storm.

The family behind Barbie spoke to the BBC in the 1990s.

And in 2014, Claibos got her hands on that archive.

Barbie, you're beautiful. You make me feel my Barbie doll is really, really...

Barbie was my idea. My own daughter, Barbie, used to play with paper dolls.

And I had observed her playing with paper dolls with all of her friends for years and years.

And I was fascinated by the way they played and the way they project themselves.

Someday I'm going to be, exactly like you.

Till then I know just what I'll do for you, beautiful Barbie.

I'll make believe that I am you.

You can tell it's Mattel, it's swell.

Ruth Handler and her husband Elliott founded Mattel in a garage workshop in Southern California in 1945.

It went on to become one of the biggest toy companies in the world.

Arguably its hardest working employee was a long-legged blonde with big breasts, a tiny waist and an eye for fashion.

Her full name was Barbara Millicent Roberts. Barbie, the doll, was named after the handler's daughter.

And as the BBC's Alan Dean discovered when he spoke to them in 1997, Barbie was to have a profound impact on the family.

Barbara hated being known as the inspiration for the Barbie doll. It bothered her.

Just as she didn't originally like the idea of me being different than everybody else, suddenly this made her different.

And Ruth Handler was different. The woman who developed the doll which would later be lambasted by feminists for presenting a beauty-obsessed caricature of womanhood was herself a driven career woman.

I felt tremendous guilt about being a mother away from my children because in those days there were no career women.

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