![]() ![]() Over 100 million sets have been sold worldwide, and Lincoln Logs were inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame in 1999. The toy’s rustic brand tied in perfectly with popular children’s shows such as “Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier” that were watched by tens of thousands of young “baby boomers” on their black-and-white televisions.Ī century after their creation, low-tech Lincoln Logs continue to be popular in a high-tech world. (The notched building logs, originally carved from redwood, are now manufactured from stained pine.) Lincoln Logs peaked in popularity during the 1950s when it was among the first toys mass-marketed on television. While restrictions on metals and other materials constrained the production of other toys during World War II, wooden Lincoln Logs continued to roll off factory lines. Lincoln logs are seen on display at FAO Schwarz. Some scholars also believe John Lloyd Wright as a child possibly played with the Log Cabin Playhouse, a similar wooden construction set that had been developed by toy company Ellis, Britton & Eaton in the 1860s. Lincoln Logs followed the trail blazed by Tinkertoys and Erector Sets, which had been introduced a few years earlier. The toy’s packaging featured a simple drawing of a log cabin, a small portrait of Lincoln and the slogan “Interesting playthings typifying the spirit of America.” Capitalizing on both a nostalgia for the frontier at a time when the United States was becoming increasingly urbanized and a wave of patriotism in the wake of World War I, Lincoln Logs became an instant success. The toy came with instructions to build not only Abraham Lincoln’s Kentucky boyhood home, but a famous log structure from the pages of American literature, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. In 1918, John Lloyd Wright began to market his creation through his own firm, the Red Square Toy Company, and two years later he received a patent for his “toy-cabin construction.” He bestowed upon his creation an alliterative name that also evoked an American icon-Lincoln Logs. Unlike Froebel’s building blocks, the interlocking system of miniature logs could withstand the shockwaves unleashed by children’s playing roughly with the toys. In 1916, using the blueprint for the Imperial Hotel as a model, he created a toy construction set that consisted of notched pieces of wood that children could stack to build log cabins, forts and other rustic buildings. Out-of-work, John Lloyd Wright turned his attention to a pint-sized design project. The relationship between father and son, however, crumbled over money long before the earthquake-proof hotel was ever constructed. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |