Familiar brands grew from immigrant families
Founders and creators behind Ideal, Mattel, Marx, Hasbro, Kenner, Wham O, and others often came from families rooted in Yiddish speaking Eastern Europe. They brought experience of poor urban neighborhoods, improvised craft, and respect for learning. A new industry also offered space to people limited by antisemitism in established professions.
The list of iconic toys is remarkably long
Ruth Handler developed Barbie, George Lerner created Mr. Potato Head, and Arthur Melin and Richard Knerr popularized the Hula Hoop. Morris and Rose Michtom began producing a stuffed bear inspired by a story about President Theodore Roosevelt. Individual successes gradually formed a shared industrial ecosystem.
Toys helped define childhood as a distinct stage
The twentieth century increasingly viewed children as people with their own creativity and needs, not merely unfinished adults. Games, books, and later television expanded this space. Kimmel argues that Jewish psychologists, children’s authors, and comic creators participated in the same cultural transformation.
Creativity also had a commercial shadow
Television advertising let manufacturers speak directly to children and turned them into persuasive agents of purchasing. The industry reinforced gender and racial stereotypes and encouraged materialism. Kimmel’s story is not a simple celebration. Objects that develop imagination can also teach children that every new desire should become another product.
