It's troll day again! This little girl is about nine or ten inches tall, plus hair.
There are several versions of the origin story for the troll dolls we all know and (some) love. The tale usually told is that a Denmark native named Thomas Dam, (pronounced 'dahm'.), carved a troll doll out of wood for his daughter, Lajla, because they had no money for gifts. The tale goes on to say that friends and family loved the troll so much, they asked for one of their own, or for their children, and things grew from there. The story later told by Dam's daughter herself, is that she and her father developed the trolls together, and she and her mother stuffed the trolls her father made with sawdust, (Huh?), and the family sold them. That sounds a little like she just wanted in on the creation of the dolls.
The long original story is that having been a creative and artistically talented child, Thomas Dam often carved wooden figures, sometimes based on the legends and folktales of trolls that had been passed down for generations in Denmark. During World War II Thomas lost his job as a baker when the local flour mill closed down. He shoveled snow in an effort to support his family. In the evenings he would carve by the fire, often carving small figures. His wife encouraged him to try to sell the figures, and he finally took as many as he could carry to nearby Aalborg to try to sell them door to door. He returned home empty handed, as he had managed to sell them all. He went on to sell the figures at fairs and other outlets, and they became so popular that people began commissioning bigger things. Eventually, in 1956, a Swedish department store hired Dam to carve a large Santa for a store display. Once the Santa was in the store, Dam had the idea that something should be able to be seen from the street, and proposed the idea of a window display to the store. They agreed, and Dam carved a profusion of tiny Christmas elves. Using springs from an old mattress, Dam created a moving, bouncing, head rolling display of wooden elves. The problem was, shoppers wanted to buy the elves! Dam struggled to supply the need, and sold out of his entire inventory by Christmas. Even after Christmas, demand continued. Dam created molds and made the figures from rubber, eliminated the springs, and filled the figures with sawdust. (That's where the daughter's story comes in, I guess.) He formed a company he called Dam Things, and in 1959 he had his own factory. In 1961 he switched to PVC instead of rubber, and the troll doll as we know it today was born.
Dam's original trolls, which became known as Dam Trolls, (what I grew up knowing them as), or Dam Dolls, (My friend Lori, for one, knew them under that name.), had glass eyes and sheep wool hair. He called them Good Luck Trolls, saying he wanted them to make people happy. He wanted his trolls to 'make people want to pick them up and give them a hug', thus the traditional troll pose with outstretched arms, ready to hug. This was what Dam referred to as the, "Give me a hug" pose. The trolls were marked with the Dam trademark, and the year on their feet.
Trolls were a craze in the 1960's. In 1961 Good Luck trolls were voted as The Toy of the Year by the U.S. Toy Industry Association. In 1964 one million trolls were sold in the U.S. alone, and that year Good Luck trolls were the mascot of the New York World's Fair. At one point Americans were spending $100,000 a month on trolls. Unfortunately, not all of that money was going to Thomas Dam's company, Dam Things. Although Dam acquired a copyright for his trolls, as with all popular things, there were copies, rip offs, one might say. In 1965 trolls were deemed public domain in the U.S. since Dam's manufacturer here had failed to place a copyright on the products. Dam was so tired of the rip off trolls in the U.S. that in the late 60's he finally stopped selling his trolls in the U.S., and took his business back to Europe, where his copyright was respected.
Eventually trolls lost their popularity, as all popular things do. They never completely went away though. In the early 1980's Dam trolls, under the name 'Norfin' launched a new line of trolls, and things started to heat up again for trolls. Although they never regained the popularity they had in their heyday, trolls enjoyed an enormous resurgence in the late 80's and early to mid 90's. Emma was born in 1991, and trolls were everywhere when she was small. She had a stuffed troll baby doll named Pookie, made by Russ, that she loved, as well as several small trolls. The store across the street from our apartment was an old fashioned pharmacy with a lunch counter, but Emma called it 'the trerl store', ('trerl' being her pronunciation of 'troll' at the time), for it's troll filled toy section. Everywhere you went you could buy trolls wearing shirts with the name of the town on them. Emma had two 'town' trolls, one from the town where we lived, and one bought on vacation. Trolls of all kinds were made by many different companies, with Hasbro even making muscle bound soldier trolls called Battel Force.
Unfortunately, Thomas Dam didn't live to see all of the giant troll resurgence. He died in 1989, but his family kept watch over his copyright. In 2003 the sole copyright to produce trolls in the U.S. was restored to the Dam family. It was challenged by Russ Berrie and Uneeda, who had made millions selling trolls, but the Dam family came out winners.
See you tomorrow!
