Xavier Roberts (born October 31, 1955 in

Cleveland, Georgia Cleveland is a city in White County, Georgia, located northeast of Atlanta and southeast of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Its population was 3,410 at the 2010 census (up from 1,907 in 2000). It is the county seat of White County. Cleveland is home to ...

) is best known for Cabbage Patch Kid dolls, once immensely popular soft sculpted

doll A doll is a model typically of a human or humanoid character, often used as a toy for children. Dolls have also been used in traditional religious rituals throughout the world. Traditional dolls made of materials such as clay and wood are foun ...

s based upon a design originally created by

Martha Nelson Thomas Martha Nelson Thomas (born Martha Marie Nelson, November 29, 1950 – May 26, 2013) was an American folk artist, known for her work in soft sculpture. Thomas was the creator of "Doll Babies," later plagiarised as Cabbage Patch Kids. Biography Ma ...

Early life

When Xavier Roberts was five, his father died in a car accident, leaving his mother to raise him and his five siblings. Roberts then attended White County High School and then attended Truett McConnell Junior College where he was an award-winning

art Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...

student.

Cabbage Patch Kids development

In 1976, Xavier Roberts met Martha Nelson Thomas at a craft fair. He asked her to supply him with dolls to sell in Georgia, where he lived and worked. Thomas briefly let him sell her Doll Babies, but stopped. Thomas sued Roberts and won an undisclosed amount after the case was settled out of court. Roberts created his own version in 1978, and in 1982 he licensed the dolls to Coleco for mass-production under the name Cabbage Patch Kids. Roberts travelled from state to state in the southeastern United States attending craft fairs and folk art exhibitions where he sold these Chinese-crafted dolls. He won awards for his work, including a first-place ribbon for a doll named Dexter at the Osceola Craft Show in

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

in 1978. Going into business as Original Appalachian Artworks, Inc., Roberts hired local seamstresses and started producing his dolls in a converted medical clinic in his hometown of Cleveland. " Babyland General Hospital" still exists today in a new location. By 1982, the Little People had evolved into Cabbage Patch Kids, licensed to

Coleco Coleco Industries, Inc. was an American company founded in 1932 by Maurice Greenberg as The Connecticut Leather Company. It was a successful toy company in the 1980s, mass-producing versions of Cabbage Patch Kids dolls and its video game conso ...

. The Cabbage Patch Kids were a huge hit, quickly becoming a major toy

fad A fad or trend is any form of collective behavior that develops within a culture, a generation or social group in which a group of people enthusiastically follow an impulse for a short period. Fads are objects or behaviors that achieve short- ...

. In 1984 alone, 20 million dolls were bought, and by 1999, 95 million dolls had been sold worldwide.

Furskin Bears creation

Roberts would later create a series of country-inspired toy bears called the Furskin Bears.

Accomplishments

Due to the commercial success of his Little People line Roberts had already become a millionaire by the age of 26. Other artwork by Roberts has been featured in galleries such as the

High Museum of Art The High Museum of Art (colloquially the High) is the largest museum for visual art in the Southeastern United States. Located in Atlanta, Georgia (on Peachtree Street in Midtown, the city's arts district), the High is 312,000 square feet (28, ...

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

. His creations also became part of the State of Georgia's permanent art collection after Roberts presented three Little People to Georgia Governor

George Busbee George Dekle Busbee Sr. (August 7, 1927 – July 16, 2004), was an American politician who served as the 77th Governor of the State of Georgia from 1975 to 1983, and a senior partner at King & Spalding thereafter. Early life Born in Vienna, Geor ...

References

External links

*Hoffman, William, ''Fantasy: The Incredible Cabbage Patch Phenomenon''.
Sewing Up the Doll Markets
1955 births Living people Toy inventors People from Cleveland, Georgia American manufacturing businesspeople 20th-century American businesspeople {{US-business-bio-1950s-stub