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The Story of the Blue Santa &
Friends
TM
In 1884, this company mass-produced the worlds first
toy – a clay marble. It was the first toy marble factory in
the USA; it produced a million marbles a day and turned out
dozens of other penny toys, including the Blue Santa.
Mass-production dramatically reduced the price toys (for a
penny a boy could buy a hand-full of marbles) and for the
first time in history all children could have toys. The
company was so successful that other local entrepreneurs
opened up their own marbleworks. By the 1920s, there’d been
a total of 32 marble factories in the greater Akron area.
Around the time when marbles were first being made,
there were men on the other side of Akron looking for new
uses for rubber. They saw this tremendous new market for
children’s products and they turned out the first
mass-produced balloons, rubber balls, rubber dollies, rubber
duckies and rubber baby buggy bumpers.
Soon other factories in Akron were turning out all
kinds of toys and children’s products; tops, and pull toys,
bicycles, tricycles and peddle cars (anything that used a
rubber tire,) toy banks, toy telephones and the first
full-color picture books.
There are still a number of major toy companies in
the greater Akron area; Little Tikes, Step Two, Eagle
Rubber, Maple City Rubber, Balloon Accessories, Inc., etc.
At present count (research continues) we’ve identified over
170 Akron area toy companies between 1884 and 2008.
Before Mass-production of Toys
From the days of the pharos in ancient Egypt, there
have always been toy-makers. They hand-made beautifully
toys; they were brightly painted, cleverly designed and so
expensive only the wealthiest families in the world could
afford to buy them. In the early 1880s a cast iron, toy
fire-engine, pulled by a horse could cost upwards of $3.00.
And, this was during a time when the average wage was 25
cents a day, for a 10 hour work-day. Of course, there were
very few wealthily people living in the 1880s.
For all the rest of the children, they had fun with
sticks and rocks, a discarded barrel hoop or a piece of
rope. While these children likely knew of those beautifully
and fancy toys that wealthy children had and played with and
found under their Christmas trees, for the vast majority of
the world’s children, the closest they had to a toy – if
they were lucky - was a rag doll mommy made or a miniature
dog that grandpa whittled.
So when toys were first mass-produced, at The
American Marble & Toy Manufacturing Company, in Akron,
Ohio, in 1884 – besides having a huge impact upon children
and childhood - it was the birthplace of the world’s toy
industry.
The End of the Beginning
The American Marble & Toy Manufacturing Company came
to an end in 1904 when a fire burnt the factory to the
ground. The morning after the fire, every little boy in
Akron could be found pillaging around the burnt-out remains
of the factory, sutting their pockets full of marbles and
penny toys. This forced the Mayor to call out the police to
guard the factory and keep the children out of harm. Soon
they realized it was a losing battle and the Mayor ordered
the factory site buried – it was a dangerous magnet for
little children - a public nuisance.
Knowing the companies production capacity in 1904,
it is estimated there were upwards of 10 million marbles and
as many penny toys in the factory on the night it burnt
down. And, it’s also estimated a majority of those toys are
still buried on site.
Lock 3 Park
In 2000 the City of Akron decided to develop the
long forgotten site of American Marble & Toy Manufacturing
Co. into a green park in the heart of Downtown. During the
next year as clearing the land and development of the park
progressed, The American Toy Marble Museum conducted
archeological excavations at the site. At the end of each
day the many five-gallon buckets of marbles and toys were
carried off site to be washed and processed.
Many of the marbles and toys found were well known to
the marble museum before samples were excavated from the
site. However, there were many surprises found as well, this
included miniature cats and dogs, a women’s shoe and man’s
boot, the wolf that ate Little Red Riding |