Thomas Dam
Danish designer
Thomas Dam (15 May 1915 – 12 November 1989) was a Danish designer associated with Gjøl in Denmark. Dam designed and invented the original troll doll also known as the Good Luck Troll. He created the toy during a period of financial distress, and carved it from wood. Soon, the family had started up a new business and Dam earned enough to buy himself a small factory where the dolls were produced in plastic. Dam created many different trolls as well as plastic baby dolls. Dam formed "Dam Things" to market the dolls. Dam trolls are now considered collector's items. The Victoria and Albert Museum of London have one in their collection.
Legacy
DreamWorks Animation released three animated films based on the dolls: Trolls (2016), Trolls World Tour (2020) and Trolls Band Together (2023), with music by Christophe Beck and Theodore Shapiro, and featuring (amongst many others) the voices of Anna Kendrick and Justin Timberlake (who also acted as executive music producer).
“Thomas Dam” enters the record as danish designer. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Thomas, Danish and designer can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Thomas Dam” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Thomas, Danish and designer provides the most credible route into that argument.
Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4993365. VIAF identifies the subject as 13148933647854302412. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1915, 1989, 2016 and 2020.
Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Thomas Dam”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Thomas Dam primary sources, Thomas Dam archive and Thomas research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Thomas Dam”?
- Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
- How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Thomas Dam” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.