Inducted Year: 1999
The idea for Lincoln Logs struck John Lloyd Wright as he watched workers build one of his father’s designs—an earthquake-proof building in Japan. The construction toy he created came with logs notched at both ends so kids could build structures sturdy enough to stand up to rough play. Good timing and a good “hook” made for success. Lincoln Logs appeared in 1924, just as parents were discovering the value of construction toys. Wright used the storied past of […]
Hula Hoop
Inducted Year: 1999
Many of the greatest toys owe their success as much to marketing as to invention. Kids have been playing with hoops for centuries—rolling and spinning them with sticks, tossing them, and even swirling them around their middles. In the 1950s, Joan Anderson, on a visit home to Australia, spotted people swiveling wooden hoops around their waists and brought the concept back to the U.S. In 1957, Wham-O toy company founders Richard Knerr and Arthur “Spud” Melin put Anderson’s […]
Duncan Yo-Yo
Inducted Year: 1999
Versions of the yo-yo are said to have originated in ancient Greece or even earlier in China, but the first yo-yo craze seized Americans in the mid-19th century when several manufacturers patented improvements to the toy. At the beginning of the 20th century, Scientific American published directions for making yo-yos. But the story of the modern yo-yo began in the 1920s. Filipino bellhop Pedro Flores caught guests’ attention by playing with the toy on his lunch breaks at […]
View-Master
Inducted Year: 1999
When Harold Graves, president of Sawyer’s Photographic Services, went to the Oregon Caves National Monument in 1938, he saw fellow camera buff William Gruber using two cameras strapped together. Gruber explained that he planned to update the stereoscopes common in 19th-century drawing rooms by producing three-dimensional color slides and a new hand-held viewer. By the next morning, the two had made a deal to produce View-Master. They introduced their creation at the 1939 New York World’s Fair and […]
Roller Skates
Inducted Year: 1999
The first roller skates had a big problem: they were impossible to turn. In 1863, however, New York businessman James Plimpton developed skates with four wheels that turned easily. Skating took off in all directions. Numerous companies developed clamp-on skates to fit on almost any pair of shoes. By the late 1870s, most towns boasted skating rinks with hard wooden floors. For a small admission price, men, women, and children raced, played games, and even danced on skates. […]
Radio Flyer Wagon
Inducted Year: 1999
Sixteen-year-old Italian immigrant Antonio Pasin arrived in New York in 1914 carrying little else than the carpentry skills he had learned from his father and grandfather. His parents had sold the family mule to pay for passage. Working in Chicago as a manual laborer, Pasin bought used woodworking equipment and set up shop in a rented room. Building little red wagons at night and peddling them during the day, he saved enough money to found the Liberty Coaster […]
