A Sears exclusive in 1965 and 1966, Skipper’s Schoolroom was notable as the first Mattel play set where Barbie went only to work (she may have worked or shopped at the Fashion Shop, and the Little Theatre similarly had multiple uses), as well as the last public space introduced to the Barbiesphere for a handful of years and maybe the last chipboard structure ever added. The play set contained all the school essentials: desks, chairs, books, globe, a chalkboard you could write on, and a playground for recess on the flipside. In the catalog graphics (1965’s image is identical to the ’66 one above), Barbie is seen wearing Student Teacher, as one might expect. Like the other late chipboard sets, details abound; many images of the interior, grounds and accessories can be found on a 2019 listing from Ripley Auctions (love the functionality in that trash receptacle!). This play set, marking the end of an era, got us thinking about where else Barbie went to work during the Sixties.

It makes sense that the Teen-Age Fashion Model’s first realized place of employment was the Fashion Shop: according to the Random House chapter books, most of her teen-aged modeling career was spent doing trunk shows or similar; furthermore, fashion was central to the Barbie enterprise. It also makes some sense that another was the schoolroom, since it also accommodated Skipper and her crew. However, Barbie had many careers in the Sixties, most of which never got an official setting.

The Keys to Fame game supplies a good roundup of Barbie’s confirmed early occupations, from more-traditional female roles like Teacher, Nurse, and Mother, to more audacious ones like Fashion Designer, as indicated by the Busy Gal ensemble: while there were female precedents in that profession, it was very male-dominated. (Barbie was actually demoted to Junior Designer around the time the Schoolroom was produced, but that’s a scandal for another day.)

A fashion designer’s studio play set could have made a great accompaniment to offerings like Sew-Free fashions, Color Magic, and even the Busy Gal and Junior Designer ensembles.

Barbie’s most trailblazing early career was Astronaut: although commentators today are just as likely to fixate on the goofy hot pink, puff-sleeved ’80s space suit, Barbie’s original astronaut garb was wholly appropriate to the task, and she wore it into space before the real NASA employed a single female astronaut.

Based on certain of her less-job-specific ensembles, we can conjecture that 1960s Barbie had other business-y careers, as well: while Commuter Set may have been a mere secretary or receptionist, Career Girl looks more executive, and no one’s telling the woman wearing On the Avenue to take a memo. Since our knowledge of Sixties career women is based, for better or worse, on Doris Day and Rock Hudson comedies, we conjecture Career Girl and On the Avenue as interior designer and advertising executive, respectively. But Mattel wouldn’t provide Barbie with a business setting for professions like these until–we believe–the Day to Night office in 1984. And yes, it was kinda pink-forward.

Further careers are posited in the Random House books. While Barbie’s Fashion Success finds our heroine merging fashion design and modeling in one temporary position, another early offering, Barbie’s New York Summer, places her in an internship at a fashion magazine where she performs a mixture of modeling and journalistic tasks, while contemplating making a career of it (the mid-Sixties Fashion Editor ensemble suggests how deliberations went). Back home, Ken urges her to consider whether a career is really what she wants, or whether she might rather remain in their small town as a lawyer’s wife; his wife. In Ken’s mind the two possibilities are that Barbie stay by his side while he pursues the path he’s chosen without her input, or that they part ways; Barbie seems to find nothing exceptional in his attitude. Though Barbie and Ken don’t break things off, two years later, in 1964, she seems committed to pursuing a career of some sort. She’s decided that modeling entails too much standing around and decides to try out broadcasting in Barbie in Television.

Based on all these possibilities, any number of Barbie-as-working-professional play sets could have been devised. Astronaut may have been out of scope for mid-Sixties Mattel, while Barbie as Stewardess would get her aircraft in the Seventies, and a brightly-hued, though not particularly executive, office awaited various other of her careers in the Eighties. Did any career-focused chipboard play sets make it to prototype, or at least the planning stages, besides the couple that were produced? We’d love to know.

Where to next? This post is about Barbie’s early built environment. Apart from the Many Abodes of Barbie series, the most recent post in this category is about Cafe Today, and the most popular are those on Mattel Modern and Susy Goose furniture and on penthouse apartments. The overall most popular post on this site is about Mattel fashion booklets. Or just head up to the Table of Contents to see more options.