This idea was the beginning of a nearly 70-year-old success story in the history of Finnish toy manufacturing.

In 1908 the Martha Club in Turku formed a committee of five women to get the doll business started. These women bought the materials and planned the first dolls as models. Later that year the women founded a company called Turun Marttanukketeollisuus ("The Turku Martha Doll Company").

The first steps were modest. The sawdust used as filling was dried in ovens at home. Marthas sewed and filled the bodies of the dolls by themselves. The heads and hands were imported from Germany. The women made dolls by instructions and used pre-cut pieces of cloth. Women gathered together at someone's house and some sewed dolls' bodies while others made shoes, hats, clothes, underwear etc. Female dolls' even had a wig maker of their own.

At first the dolls were sold at market places but later the Marthas expanded the business. The first travelling salesman was hired in 1912. Soon the number of doll makers was forty. The dolls were taken to national and international doll shows and they often received awards.

During the World War I, the Marthas could not get any more dolls' heads from Germany but finally in 1916 they managed to find a toy manufacturing company of a master painter H.E.Nurmi in Turku that was able to provide the Doll Company with dolls' heads. In the year 1918, the Martha Doll Company employed 112 persons and in addition, there were thirty persons who made dolls' heads.

The number of resellers grew, too: in 1925 there were 240 of them. The number of sold dolls in the same year was 33 366, and the company sold a large amount of doll parts, too. The Marthas increased advertising and an artist called Einari Vehmas was asked to make an advertisement "Buy Martha Dolls" in 1931. Dolls were sold also by mail order and orders came from out of the country more than the Marthas could handle. The business that started as a hobby like operation was now a growing enterprise.

During the war in 1939-1945, when there was no import, the demand for Finnish dolls was huge. In 1943 the Ministry of Supply started rationing toy manufacturing and denied the doll making. Doll making was allowed some time later but the material had to be paper cloth and the prices were determined by the Ministry. The quality was not good any more; the paper cloth was coarse and broke sewing machines easily. Orders flooded in but the quality of dolls made of substitute materials did not satisfy consumers. The Ministry of Supply ended the control of toy industry in 1945 but there was still a serious shortage of materials. The shipments of patches from Sweden and even America helped a bit but there was nevertheless a lack of material till the following decade.

In the 1950's, the Martha Dolls faced new difficulties: the competition stepped up. Dolls were imported to Finland more than before and plastic, hard-wearing dolls came on the market. In the 1960's the Martha Doll Company started to make washable dolls and animals made of cloth. In the end of the 1960's the Stockmann Company bought half of the production. The buyer was especially interested in dolls' clothes and so the Martha Doll Company made a complete collection of dolls' clothes. As models they used the clothes shown in French catalogues of children's clothes.

The production of Martha Dolls was stopped in 1974 when the business had become unprofitable.

Sources: Anna-Liisa Amberg & Benita Suomi: Suuri Suomalainen nukkekirja. Published by Ajatus in 1997.
Pipsa ystäväni. Published by Turun maankuntamuseo in 1989.