Richard T. James
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Richard Thompson James[1] (1914–1974), born January 1, 1914, was a naval engineer. He invented a spring toy, named Slinky by his wife Betty, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the early to mid-1940s.
Education
Richard James graduated from Westtown School, a Quaker boarding school located in Chester County, Pennsylvania, in 1935. He graduated in 1939 with a degree in Mechanical Engineering from The Pennsylvania State University.[2]
Career
In 1943, Richard James was trying to develop a means for suspending sensitive shipboard instruments aboard naval vessels, even in rough seas. He was working with tension springs, when he accidentally dropped one. Seeing how the spring kept moving after it hit the ground, and an idea for a toy was born.
With a $500 loan, Richard James developed a coil winding machine and started the James Spring & Wire Company to mass-produce the Slinky. The name for the toy was coined by Betty James after she couldn't think of a suitable name so looked in the dictionary under the letter "S" and found the word Slinky.[citation needed] Slinky was successfully demonstrated at Gimbels Department Store in Philadelphia during the 1945 Christmas season and then at the 1946 American Toy Fair. In 'it's First demonstration at Gimbels in 1945 within the first 90 minutes It of starting the display the entire inventory of 400 units sold out.[citation needed] It became a huge success, with around 300 million Slinkys purchased since then. A quarter of a billion Slinkys are still sold every year around the world today. [citation needed]
Around 1960, Richard went to Bolivia to join Wycliffe Bible Translators.[3] Betty James took over as CEO of James Industries.[4] She moved the company from Philadelphia to its current Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania location and began an active advertising campaign, complete with the famous Slinky jingle. She was inducted into the Toy Industry Hall of Fame in 2001.
James died in 1974 in Bolivia. Betty James died on November 20, 2008, age 90, at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
Slinky 1960 catchy T.v ad
What walks down stairs alone or in pairs and makes a slinkidy sound, a spring a spring a marvellous thing everyone knows it's Slinky.[citation needed]
External links
- Slinky patent
- Delaware County Times article, 26 August, 1948
- Delaware County Daily Times article, 25 November 1976
References
- ↑ MIT: Richard James
- ↑ Penn State: What’s the connection between a Slinky and Penn State?
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ CNN.com
