In 1902, Morris and Rose Michtom invented the Teddy Bear in the back room of their Brooklyn candy store. Together, they launched the Ideal Toy Corporation into a prewar market rife with other first-generation American Jewish toymakers: the Hassenfield brothers of Hasbro, Ruth Moskowicz and Elliot Handler of Mattel, and Joshua Lionel Cowan of Lionel Trains. In Playmakers, Michael Kimmel documents the creation of the idealized American childhood in the twentieth century--an idea developed but not experienced by its creators, whose parents often were poor immigrants from Eastern Europe. From Barbie and G.I. Joe to Popeye, Superman, and Mr. Potato Head, Kimmel follows Jewish toymakers as they climbed the ladder of success alongside Jewish comic book creators, children's authors, parenting experts, and child psychologists. Playmakers shows how the overlapping experiences of being a Jew and a child in twentieth-century America--an outsider looking in, a person desperate to be accepted--created childhood as we know it today.
In 1902, Morris and Rose Michtom invented the Teddy Bear--bound by clothing scraps, stuffed with sawdust, and given button eyes with a sad, longing expression--in the back room of their Brooklyn candy store. Together they launched the Ideal Toy Corporation, joining a set of other poor, first-generation Jewish toymakers: the Hassenfeld brothers of Hasbro, Ruth Moskowicz and Elliot Handler of Mattel, and Joshua Lionel Cowan of Lionel Trains.
From Barbie and G.I. Joe to Popeye, Superman, and Mr. Potato Head, Playmakers reveals how the toy industry created the idealized American childhood: an enchanted world, full of wild creatures and eternal struggles between good and evil, with endless realms of fantasy and beauty. For much of the twentieth century, every part of the American toy business was largely Jewish--the company founders, executives, and designers, as well as the factory workers, wholesale distributors, retail outlets, and armies of salesmen. A descendant of the founders of the Ideal Toy Corporation, Michael Kimmel shows how these poor, often Yiddish-speaking, tenement-dwelling children of immigrants invented a world they never experienced for themselves. Along with the toys and Jewish toymakers that climbed the ladder of success, Kimmel also portrays the rise of an entire culture focused on children, led by Jewish comic book creators, children's authors, parenting experts, and child psychologists.
The first full-scale toy history of the United States, Kimmel's story conjures the colorful, imaginative, restless spirits who followed the promise of the American Dream--and describes the ways in which the world they came from molded their beloved creations. Playmakers shows that the overlapping experiences of being a Jew, an immigrant, and a child in twentieth-century America--an outsider looking in, a person desperate to be accepted--created childhood as we know it today.
In 1902, Morris and Rose Michtom invented the Teddy Bear--bound by clothing scraps, stuffed with sawdust, and given button eyes with a sad, longing expression--in the back room of their Brooklyn candy store. Together they launched the Ideal Toy Corporation, joining a set of other poor, first-generation Jewish toymakers: the Hassenfeld brothers of Hasbro, Ruth Moskowicz and Elliot Handler of Mattel, and Joshua Lionel Cowan of Lionel Trains.
From Barbie and G.I. Joe to Popeye, Superman, and Mr. Potato Head, Playmakers reveals how the toy industry created the idealized American childhood: an enchanted world, full of wild creatures and eternal struggles between good and evil, with endless realms of fantasy and beauty. For much of the twentieth century, every part of the American toy business was largely Jewish--the company founders, executives, and designers, as well as the factory workers, wholesale distributors, retail outlets, and armies of salesmen. A descendant of the founders of the Ideal Toy Corporation, Michael Kimmel shows how these poor, often Yiddish-speaking, tenement-dwelling children of immigrants invented a world they never experienced for themselves. Along with the toys and Jewish toymakers that climbed the ladder of success, Kimmel also portrays the rise of an entire culture focused on children, led by Jewish comic book creators, children's authors, parenting experts, and child psychologists.
The first full-scale toy history of the United States, Kimmel's story conjures the colorful, imaginative, restless spirits who followed the promise of the American Dream--and describes the ways in which the world they came from molded their beloved creations. Playmakers shows that the overlapping experiences of being a Jew, an immigrant, and a child in twentieth-century America--an outsider looking in, a person desperate to be accepted--created childhood as we know it today.
![Zoë Bakes Cookies: Everything You Need to Know to Make Your Favorite Cookies and Bars [A Baking Book] by Zoe Francois](/sites/rizzolibookstore.com/files/styles/medium/public/timberImage/97/9781984860804.jpg?itok=Vt7WAVXg "Zoë Bakes Cookies: Everything You Need to Know to Make Your Favorite Cookies and Bars [A Baking Book] by Zoe Francois")
