By Rabbi Rachel Esserman

Toys, comic books and comic strips: Immigrant Jews played a large role in the development of all three industries in the United States. In his “Playmakers: The Jewish Entrepreneurs Who Created the Toy Industry in America” (W. W. Norton and Company), Michael Kimmel notes that Jewish immigrants – the ones who never experienced a carefree childhood – helped create the modern version of childhood that came into being during the 20th century. He boldly claims that his work “is the story of the creation of the idealized childhood that these poor, often Yiddish-speaking, tenement-dwelling children of immigrants from Russia and eastern Europe never got to live for themselves. They imagined a world where other children could have the experiences they lacked – and in doing so, they transformed America.”
While I’m not certain that Kimmel proves that these men and women were deliberately seeking to change childhood, that doesn’t take away from his entertaining and informative work. “Playmakers” contains an almost overwhelming number of stories about those who participated in these industries and those who considered them dangerous. It might surprise people to learn that the teddy bear was thought to corrupt young girls, making them unfit for motherhood, or that congressional hearings about comic books were held in the 1950s because comic books were thought to create juvenile delinquency.
Kimmel’s original plan was to just write about his own family: his great-great-uncle Morris Michton, the founder of the Ideal Toy Company, invented the teddy bear and later sold the popular Shirley Temple doll. However, the author soon came to realize that there was more to the story of toy makers than his family. What surprised him was how many immigrants formed their companies and offered toys ranging from baby dolls to action figures to games. Perhaps the best known of all of these is the Barbie doll, which is still so popular today that a live-action film featuring her was a box office hit recently.
Kimmel is correct in noting that it was only during the 20th century that childhood became a distinct period in a person’s life and development. He writes, “A century ago children enjoyed little parental attention or warmth, had little time for play, and received little encouragement to express themselves. Childhood as a separate and distinct stage of life, one that required special attention, emerged as the product of economic and social shifts – declining birth rates, urbanization, educational reforms, labor reforms – that led to shifts in our ideas about child-rearing, child development, and proper parenting.” However, it seems that the Jews who were involved in creating the toys children played with and the comics they read were less interested in creating a new version of childhood than with making a living in a country where antisemitism limited their opportunities.
One excellent example is the comic book industry. It’s clear from the comic book creators that Kimmel interviewed that they worked in that industry because more mainstream jobs in art were closed to Jews. Starting a small toy business was relatively easy then: the story of the teddy bear’s creation is an example. Kimmel’s great-great-uncle Morris owned a candy store and, inspired by a tale of President Teddy Roosevelt and a bear hunt, had his wife Rose stitch together a small stuffed bear. The plan was not to sell it, but just display it in the store window. However, customers asked if they could buy one. Morris first turned to local tailors to make the bears until he realized how much money he could make if even more were produced. He contacted a local manufacturing firm and what began as one doll turned into an industry whose product is still actively sought by parents and children today.
It feels ironic that Jews dominated the toy industry, when, even today, the largest number of their products are sold during the Christmas season. Many of these toys were originally sold in department stores; to add to the irony, many of those stores were also owned by Jews. Kimmel notes that “Yiddish Jews created the toys and dolls and manufactured them, and an enormous sales force hawked them to the buyers at department stories owed by German Jews – all to ensure that the Christmas season would be at least as happy for Jews as it was for gentiles.”
Creativity played a role in the toy makers’ success. They managed to survive through embargoes during two world wars that prevented materials they needed from entering the U.S., as well as the Great Depression. That meant finding new materials to use and ways to make their dolls/toys stand out from the crowd. Kimmel narrates how they sought to manufacture new products, for example dolls and action figures with bendable limbs, and baby dolls that hads the ability to cry, wet a diaper or speak. New types of toys were also invented: Silly Putty was originally seen as a possible replacement for rubber during World War II. It proved an unsuccessful substitute. An unnamed toy store owner came across the material and successfully marketed it.
Readers of comic books and comic strips will be interested in the sections that focus on these industries. What was surprising to this reviewer is the creators of what could be considered the least Jewish of these works – the Archie comic books and the Li’l Abner comic strip – were produced by Jews. While admitting that the Archie comics are not about Jews, Kimmel does see a connection between Li’l Abner and Jews: he writes that “what, after all, was Appalachia but a mountainous area filled with little hamlets of strange folk traditions and meager living – a region of shtetls with a Southern accent, an American Pale of the Settlement? At least that was what Al Capp created with his family of rural hillbillies from Dogpatch, the Yokums. Pappy Yokum was Tevye with a drawl and fewer teeth.” There is also a discussion about whether Popeye should be considered Jewish, something I never considered, but the author notes that the character was based on Frank “Rocky” Fiegel, a real-life Polish Jewish immigrant who “had massive forearms, a deformed eye, and a ubiquitous pipe in his mouth.” Of course, there is a discussion about whether or not Superman is a member of the tribe, although Kimmel notes, that while created by Jews, Batman is clearly a Gentile.
Readers may argue whether Kimmel proves his thesis, but the pleasures of “Playmakers” are so many that for most the argument will be irrelevant. It helps that I love reading about toys, comic books and comic strips, but the lives of those involved in creating them are also interesting. Kimmel does successfully show how the Jewish immigrants he writes about looked to assimilate into American culture, although whether they realized that they were playing a major role in creating that culture is open to debate. However, what they created still affects not only children, but the adults who buy these toys and books for their children and, sometimes, for themselves.