- John Lloyd Wright
John Lloyd Wright (1892 - 1972) was a U.S. architect and toy inventor. He invented Lincoln Logs in 1918. He was the son of Frank Lloyd Wright. - Alfred Carlton Gilbert
Alfred Carlton Gilbert (born February 13, 1884 - died January 24, 1961) was an American inventor, athlete, toy-maker and businessman. Born in Salem, Oregon and died in Boston, Massachusetts, Gilbert is best known as the inventor of the Erector Set. Gilbert was educated at the Tualatin Academy and attended Pacific University in nearby Forest Grove, Oregon. While attending Pacific University, Gilbert was a brother of the Gamma Sigma Fraternity. - Joshua Lionel Cowen
Joshua Lionel Cowen (August 25, 1877-September 8, 1965), born Joshua Lionel Cohen, was an American inventor and the cofounder of Lionel Corporation, a manufacturer of model railroads and toy trains. The eighth of nine children of Jewish immigrants and a college dropout (he enrolled both at Columbia University and the City College of New York), Cowen received his first patent in 1899, for a device that ignited a photographer's flash. - Ty Warner
Harold Ty Warner (born September 3, 1944) is a wealthy American toy manufacturer and businessman. He is Chairman, CEO, sole owner and founder of Ty Inc., which manufactures and distributes Beanie Babies. In 2005 Forbes estimated his net worth at approximately $4.4 billion - down from a peak of $6 billion - still making him one of the wealthiest people in the world. - Ruth Handler
Ruth Handler (November 4, 1916 - April 27, 2002) was an American businesswoman, the president of the toy manufacturer Mattel, Inc., and is remembered primarily for her role in marketing the Barbie doll. Her husband, Elliott Handler, and her business partner, Harold "Matt" Matson, formed a small company to manufacture picture frames, calling it "Mattel" by combining their names ("Matt" + "El"liot). - Frank Hornby
Frank Hornby (15 May 1863 - 21 September 1936) was an English inventor, businessman and politician. He was a visionary in toy development and manufacture and produced three of the most popular lines of toys in the twentieth century: Meccano, Hornby Model Railways and Dinky Toys. He also founded the British toy company Meccano Ltd in 1908. - David Brewster
Sir David Brewster,FRS, (11 December 1781 - 10 February 1868) was a Scottish scientist, inventor and writer. He was born at Jedburgh, where his father, a teacher of high reputation, was rector of the grammar school. At the age of twelve, he was sent to the University of Edinburgh, being intended for the clergy. However, he had already shown a strong inclination for natural science, and this had been fostered by his intimacy with a "self-taught philosopher, … - George Lerner
George Lerner (born 1922) was the inventor of the famous American toy, Mr. Potato Head. During the 1950s he sold the idea of a toy whose body parts would stick onto a potato to a cereal company. The idea never caught on until the Hassenfeld brothers (now Hasbro) bought the rights to the toy for $0.50. - Margarete Steiff
German toymaker Margarete Steiff (July 24, 1847 - May 9 1909), born in Giengen, started creating toy stuffed animals in 1880 in the town of Giengen an der Brenz, Germany. Margarete was a seamstress and confined to a wheelchair, due to polio she contracted as a baby, she started making stuffed animals as a hobby. These toys began as elephants, which were originally a design Steiff found in a magazine and originally sold as pincushions to her friends. - Xavier Roberts
Xavier Roberts (born 1955, Cleveland, Georgia), the inventor and maker of Cabbage Patch Kids is an American artist and businessman. After learning the German art of soft sculpture, he created a type of doll he called "Little People". Going into business as Original Appalachian Artworks, Inc, Roberts started producing Little People in his hometown of Cleveland, at a converted medical clinic, which he rechristened "Babyland General Hospital". - Arthur Granjean
Arthur Granjean invented the Etch A Sketch® in the late 1950s. Granjean displayed his prototype, which he had built in his basement and called "L'Ecran Magique" ("The Magic Screen"), at the 1959 International Toy Exhibition. There, executives of the Ohio Art Company acquired the rights to produce it commercially. The classically simple, lineographic, Etch-a-Sketch, which debuted during the Christmas shopping season of 1960, near the peak of the baby boom, … - Louis Marx
Louis Marx (August 11, 1896 - February 5, 1982) was an American toy maker and businessman whose company, Louis Marx and Company was the largest toy company in the world in the 1950s. Marx was described as an intense, hard-driving, and energetic man, who "[T]alks, walks, and gestures tirelessly, like one of his own wound-up toys." Marx was known by numerous nicknames, … - Jack Odell
John William "Jack" Odell (March 19, 1920-July 7, 2007) was the English cofounder of Matchbox Toys and the engineer responsible for their unique design. He joined with partners Leslie Smith and Rodney Smith to form Lesney Products. The company initially made small products for cars such as dashboards and doorhandles. Odell designed a small steamroller in 1952 for his daughter to take to school. It proved to be a big hit for her for his daughter and her friends. - Harold von Braunhut
Harold Nathan Braunhut aka Harold von Braunhut (31 March 1926 - 28 November 2003) was an American mail-order marketer most famous as the creator and seller of Amazing Sea-Monkeys. He was also an inventor, and promoted extreme right-wing beliefs. Harold von Braunhut was born in Memphis, Tennessee on 31 March 1926. Von Braunhut grew up in New York City and resided there until the 1980s when he moved to Maryland. - Hans Beck
Hans Beck was the German inventor of the toy Playmobil. He is thus often called "The Father of Playmobil." Born in Thuringia, Beck grew up in the town of Zirndorf, beginning his toymaking career as a creator of little vehicles and figures for his younger siblings. Beck received training as a cabinetmaker but worked simultaneously on model airplanes, a product he pitched to the company Geobra Brandstätter. - Richard T. James
Richard T. James was a naval engineer. He and his wife, Betty, were the inventors of the Slinky. The Slinky was invented in the town of Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania. - Gary Dahl
Gary Dahl, an advertising executive from Los Gatos, California, conceived the idea of selling rocks to people as Pet Rocks, complete with instructions. The 1975 fad only lasted about half a year, but that was enough to make Dahl a millionaire. In 2000, Dahl won the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, the San José State University sponsored competition that awards authors for crafting particularly bad "purple prose." Dahl's winning entry: :The heather-encrusted Headlands, … - Morris Michtom
Morris Michtom invented the Teddy Bear. Morris was selling candy in his shop in Brooklyn by day and making stuffed animals with his wife Rose at night. The Teddy Bear came about in respone to the hunting trip Teddy Roosevelt went on in 1902 where he refused to kill the bear he tracked. After the creation of the bear in 1903, the sale of the bears was so brisk that Michtom created the Ideal Novelty and Toy Company in 1907. - Ole Kirk Christiansen
Ole Kirk Christiansen was a Danish master carpenter and toymaker, responsible for both founding the Lego Group and inventing the world-famous Lego bricks. He has a son, who headed LEGO after him: Godfred Kirk Christiansen. His grandson Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen is the current vice chairman of the board of LEGO. He was chief executive until 2004, when Jørgen Vig Knudstorp, a former McKinsey consultant, became the new head. - Bernard Loomis
Bernard Loomis (July 4, 1923 - June 2, 2006) was an American toy developer and marketer who introduced to some of the world's most notable brands including "Chatty Cathy", "Barbie," "Hot Wheels," "Baby Alive," and "Strawberry Shortcake," but perhaps his biggest marketing success was bringing a then-unknown film property called "Star Wars" to the toy shelves. Every toy company he worked for (Mattel, General Mills, … - Ernő Rubik
Ernő Rubik is a Hungarian inventor, sculptor and professor of architecture. He is best known for the invention of mechanical puzzles including Rubik's Cube, Rubik's Magic and Rubik's Snake. - Fred Cox
Fred Cox is a former National Football League kicker for the Minnesota Vikings throughout his career (1963-1977). He is also the inventor of the nerf football. Fred was raised in Monongahela, PA where his family owned a grocery store. He taught PA History at Charleroi High School in 1967. He is the Vikings all-time leading scorer (1,365 points) and leads them in field goals all-time (282). - Scott Kim
Scott Kim is an American puzzle and computer game designer, artist, and author. He started writing an occasional "Boggler" column for "Discover" magazine in 1990, and became an exclusive columnist in 1999, and created hundreds of other puzzles for magazines such as "Scientific American" and "Games", as well as thousands of puzzles for computer games. Kim was born in 1955 in Washington D.C. and grew up in Rolling Hills Estates, California. - Richard Steiff
Richard Steiff was a German inventor and entrepreneur. The nephew of the toymaker Margarete Steiff, he is credited with the designing the Steiff Company's first toy bear. Steiff was born in Giengen, and entered his aunt's toymaking enterprise in 1897. While attending the School of Arts and Crafts ("Kunstgewerbeschule") in Stuttgart, he would regularly visit the nearby Nill'scher Zoo (closed 1906) and spend much of his time drawing the residents of the bear enclosure. - Reynolds Guyer
Reynolds (Reyn) Guyer was a department supervisor at his father's company when, in 1965, two gentlemen that he had hired, Charles F. Foley and Neil W. Rabens, invented the game of Twister (originally called 'Pretzel') in 1966. He was later involved in the development of Nerf. He attended St. Paul Academy and Summit School and later Dartmouth College, graduating in the class of 1957. - Walter Frederick Morrison
Walter Fredrick Morrison is best known as the inventor of the Frisbee. He was born in Richfield, Utah. He currently resides in Monroe, Utah. There is a Disc Golf course named in his honor located in Holladay, Utah. Fred claims that the original idea came to him while throwing a popcorn can lid with his girlfriend, Lu, whom he later married. The popcorn lid soon dented which led to the discovery that cake pans flew better and were more common. - Uwe Mèffert
Uwe Mèffert has manufactured and sold mechanical puzzles in the style of Rubik's Cube since the original Cube craze. His first design was the Pyraminx and others include the Megaminx, Skewb and Skewb Diamond. More recently he has licensed and rereleased designs from other manufacturers, such as Dogic. In the 1970s Mèffert created some puzzles for his own amusement using pieces of balsa wood attached to a center ball by rubber bands. - Charles Plimpton
Charles Bird Plimpton (1893 - 29 December 1948) was an English inventor and businessman. He invented Bayko in 1933, a plastic building model construction toy, and one of the earliest plastic toys to be marketed. He established Plimpton Engineering in Liverpool, England, to manufacture the toy, which was sold across the world for over 30 years. - Ōno Kōjin
Ōno Kōjin (大野光仁、おうのこうじん; "Ōno Kōjin", "Ono Kojin", "Ouno Koujin"; born May 11, 1959, Tokyo). Toy designer employed by Takara since 1980. Mr. Ōno's early designs included the "Diaclone Walk-In Centre" and "Microman Acro Saturn". He also designed most of the "Diaclone Car Robot" line (with additional design work by Shoji Kawamori) and "Car Microman" figures, … - Sorenson "sam" Adams
Samuel Sorenson Adams (May 24, 1879 - October 20, 1963) was an inventor and manufacturer of novelty products, including the Joy Buzzer. - Rod Hoffmann
Rod Hoffmann (born 1960, Toledo, Ohio) is an award winning graphic designer turned toy designer. During the mid 90's he served as V.P. Creative Services of Scoreboard/Classic Games, one of the largest trading card, games and sports memorabilia companies of that decade. After resigning from Classic Games in 1998 he founded the Big Eye Studio in Atlanta, Georgia, to focus on toy design. The studio's client list includes companies such as Coca-Cola, Strottman International, … - Adam
Adam likes his margaritas on the rocks with salt. Adam hates luggage with wheels. Adam is the perfect tonic for your stylish, mysterious, and dangerous life. - Westley
One of a kind. - Steve
Toys "Don't mess with the volcano my man, 'cause I will go Pompeii on your... butt." - Mr. Furious. - Krysta
Check me out at the end on the pink motorcycle! - Jessica Knapp
I'm a pint sized pretty with a penchant for plastic & plushy playthings! - Krysta
- Westley Ciaramella
- Craig
- Eric
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