America's National Toy

I’ve started the holiday weekend early (It’s Victoria Day on Monday), so it’s a repost of an old post tonight. Yesterday I had a twitter conversation about Lego and Tinkertoys. It reminded me of this post from four years ago, so I’ve fetched it from the archives for you.

Long ago, before the age of Lego, there were Lincoln Logs. Do you know who invented them? I’ll give you a hint: It wasn’t Abraham Lincoln.

Do you need another clue? Lincoln Logs were the brainchild of the son of the architect who designed the hotel to the left. You can click on the photo for a larger view if you think that will help you identify him. Even if you don’t know enough about architecture to recognize this man’s work, you may want to take a closer look at the photo. It’s a grand building, yes, but doesn’t it look a little Lincoln loggish?

It was when this son-of-an-architect traveled with is father to Tokyo while this hotel was being built that he saw the interlocking beams in the basement, beams specially designed to withstand Tokyo’s earthquakes. These beams were his inspiration for a toy construction set.

Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention. In this case, invention came before necessity, but necessity was certainly the motivation behind the development and marketing of this invention. When his famous architect daddy refused to pay him a salary, son-of-an-architect began pilfering a bit here and there from the fees he collected for his father on this hotel. Daddy found out and fired him, and children everywhere benefit because the filching son was forced to fend for himself.

The Christmas ad pictured above is from the December 1928 issue of Child Life, four years after Lincoln Logs were first sold to the public. I’ve cut the copy from the ad, but you can still see the entire thing if you wish. Here’s some of it:

The very “Spirit of America” is typified by the creative possibilities of LINCOLN LOGS. A new enlarged Design Book shows many novel building ideas and suggests ways of using LINCOLN LOGS which arouse and maintain interest in this “ALL AMERICAN Toy” and make it “the most used Toy in the Playroom.”

And you thought people today overuse quotation marks. 

“LINCOLN LOGS,” we’re told, “‘Fit In’ with Other Toys.” Good to know. The playroom is no place for misfits.

A single set of logs sold for $1, a double for $2, and a triple for $3. There was no savings for buying in bulk back then. I have photos of ads from 1928 and 1934 (scroll down) and the prices are exactly the same, but by 1934, a set that includes log wheels for making “OX CARTS, WHEELBARROWS, WAGONS and CANNON of the olden times”, “modern Motor Cars,” and airplanes has been added to the selection.

My sister and I received a set of Lincoln Logs for Christmas when I was five years old. I had very few toys as a child because my family had no money for extras, and toys, believe it or not, are extras. But that Christmas three teenaged boys from the church my father pastored made each of us a big doll cradle, and they threw in a set of Tinker Toys and a set of Lincoln Logs, too.

I never did play with my cradle because I didn’t do dolls. I preferred cars and trucks, and not in the “Hi, baby truck, I’m a big truck and I’m your mommy!” way my youngest daughter did. No, I built national parks in the dirt and drove in the tourists. You can imagine how much I loved my Lincoln Logs.

The only problem with Lincoln Logs is that there are never enough of them. Do you know how many sets it would have taken to make the whole town pictured above? Remember that each roof slat is a piece, as well as each single linker used in the doors and windows. I doubt you could make the large central building from even a triple set of 166 logs. My husband solved the piece shortage problem for my own kids by making them hundreds and hundreds of additional pieces out of wood scraps from his shop. They filled whole rooms with their cities.

Somewhere in the storage room in the basement is a 4 foot by 2 foot by 2 foot cardboard box containing his home made Lincoln logs. Before long, there will be grandchildren filling whole rooms with cities and national parks. They will not know their grandpa, but they’ll be able to play with the toys he made. That’s a consolation prize, I suppose, but it’s better than nothing.

There is no prize, consolation or otherwise, for guessing which architect’s son invented Lincoln Logs. If you know only one famous architect and you guess him, you will probably be (w)right.

Lincoln Logs are, you might say, “America’s National Toy” from the son of “America’s National Architect.”

---

More fun with toys:

• Insist on Slinky