The company was founded in 1945 by Harold "Matt" Matson and Elliot Handler. Handler's wife, Ruth Handler, later became president, and she is credited with establishing the Barbie product line for the company in 1959.[citation needed] After the release of the Barbie doll, Mattel revolutionized the toy industry with its talking dolls and toys. Major successes in the 1960s with the talking Chatty Cathy doll in 1960 and See 'N Say toys in 1965, and the introduction of the Hot Wheels line in 1968 moved Mattel to its position as the number one toymaker in America.
In 1971, Mattel purchased the Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus for 40 million dollars from Irvin Feld. The Feld family bought the circus back in 1982.
In the late 1980s, Mattel was the PAL manufacturer chosen by Nintendo to make and market the Nintendo Entertainment System. This had followed a failed attempt by Nintendo to enter a similar worldwide deal with Atari. After not securing an agreement with Atari, even later entering into various lawsuits with that company, Nintendo decided instead to take a risk and bring their console to North America on their own, while cutting PAL manufacturing and marketing costs by entering into a deal with Mattel. Mattel had previously made the Intellivision in 1979, and had some experience in the Video Games industry at that time. Nintendo had, in a previous incarnation, also been a toy manufacturer and the two companies believed they had much in common.
After the system became a huge success in America, this deal was later considered a mistake, in hindsight, by Nintendo, as the Mattel version of the console was outsold in the PAL regions by the main rival, the Sega Master System. Nintendo had misjudged Mattels enthusiasm for the console, which they had not considered a core product.
In May 1999, at the height of the dot-com bubble, Mattel acquired The Learning Company for $3.5 billion in stock or 4.5 times annual sales. The Learning Company had in 1997 accumulated losses of $475 million.
In December 2000, Mattel sued the band Aqua, saying their song "Barbie Girl" violated the Barbie trademark and turned Barbie into a sex object, referring to her as a "blonde bimbo." The lawsuit was rejected in 2002.
In 2002, Mattel closed its last factory in the United States, originally part of the Fisher-Price division, outsourcing production to China which began a chain of events that led to a scandal involving lead contamination.
On August 14, 2007, Mattel recalled over 18 million products. Many of the products had exceeded the US limits set on surface coatings that contain lead. Surface coatings cannot exceed .06% lead by weight.[9] Additional recalls were because it was possible that some toys could pose a danger to children due to the use of strong magnets that may detach. Mattel re-wrote its policy on magnets, finally issuing a recall in August 2007. The recall included 7.1 million Polly Pocket toys produced before November 2006; 600,000 Barbie and Tanner Playsets; 1 million Doggie Daycare; Shonen Jump's One Piece; and thousands of Batman Manga toys due to exposed magnets.[10] In 2009 Mattel would pay a $2.9 million fine to the Consumer Products Safety Commission for marketing, importing, and selling non-compliant toys.
Mattel was named by Fortune magazine as one of the top 100 companies to work for in 2013, noting that only 1,292 positions were newly filled out of 164,045 job applications during the previous year, as well as the fact that more than 1,000 employees have been with the company longer than 15 years.
1945年，鲁丝·汉德勒（B.Ruth Handler）与丈夫艾略特·汉德勒（Elliot Handler）、Harold Matson三人在一间车房创办了美泰（Mattel）公司，总部设于美国南加州的 El Segundo，Mattel一名即是由Matt与El两个字首所组成。第一个产品是Picture Frames，后来Elliot将产品转向玩偶之家。
1959年，鲁丝·汉德勒由女儿裁剪成人纸娃娃啓发，发表了当时世界最有名的芭比娃娃（芭比娃娃），受到极大批的小女孩及母亲欢迎，至今已售出超过10亿支娃娃。
1997年11月宣布设立全球制造规范GMP，议题包括工资与工时、童工、强迫劳动、歧视、工会组织，并邀请CUNY的Sethi教授来组成这个查核团队。