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Dolls have probably existed for as long as humans have lived, and the oldest finds are wooden dolls from tombs in Egypt, dated to around 4000 BC. Some of them wear glass clothes and necklaces, but it is highly uncertain whether they are play dolls. Dolls also existed in the Greek and Roman cultures and were usually made of earthenware. Unfortunately, we do not know much about the significance and function of the oldest dolls.

It was not until the latter part of the 16th century that dolls were primarily used for playing with. Then the so-called "Queen Anne Doll" was launched in England and commercial production of play and fashion dolls began in Germany and England. These dolls were always made of wood with glass eyes. The fashion doll was created to show and spread the latest fashion, much like a kind of miniature model. The dolls were then sent around between the court and wealthy families to show how people should dress to follow the fashion.

After the arrival of industrialism in Europe, a large toy industry developed in the southern part of Germany in the 19th century. Around the central town of Sonneberg in the Erzgebirge, there were many doll manufacturers who produced the popular Sonneberg dolls. The German doll industry was very successful at this time and the dolls could be bought almost all over the world. The export of German wooden toys was so extensive during a period that large parts of the German forests were cut down to meet the demand for wood. This was one of the reasons why papier mache began to be used more and more in doll making.

Towards the middle of the 19th century, porcelain began to be used to create the heads of the dolls. Porcelain is a fragile and not particularly play-friendly material, but it is cheap and easy to cast in molds. This saved time and money and at the same time allowed for increased production. At first, unglazed porcelain was most often used, but later doll heads were often made of glazed, so-called bisque porcelain.

Porcelain continued to be the most common material for doll heads until World War I. Some production of doll heads in porcelain continued into the 1920s.

Towards the end of the 19th century, the synthetic material celluloid was developed. Celluloid has properties similar to ivory and became popular as it had several uses. Around 1910, entire dolls began to be made of celluloid. Celluloid was initially much more durable and better than porcelain, but it later turned out to be a very flammable and less durable material that after a while became as brittle as eggshells.

Over the years, experiments were carried out with other materials, such as metal doll heads, but they were not a great success. In the 1910s, the German Käthe Kruse started an extensive production of artistically designed cloth dolls. These were considerably more play-friendly, but they were very expensive, so many people could not afford them. Instead, it is common to use old socks and rags to make your own cloth and rag dolls.