German toys in antebellum America

Magazine Antiques, Dec, 2002 by Mary Audrey Apple

Page's suppliers in Sonneberg must have become weary of his constant complaints, for he wrote in December 1831, "I received your letter a few days since, and can assure you, that I am as unwilling to complain as you are to hear it." (60) The Lindner firm had its own problems. In the early 1830s the German wholesalers experienced an increasing demand for their products, causing delays in shipments. Violent storms devastated the forest in the region of Sonneberg in December 1833 and January 1834, and a large number of uprooted trees had to be cleared to prevent the spread of the goat beetle, which threatened the sound trees. The government ordered all the makers of wooden toys to assist the woodcutters in clearing the debris. The increasing demand for toys and the decrease in production combined to force prices up in the 1830s. (61) There is no indication, however; that the price increases resulted in better pay for the toymakers. As in New York City during the 1830s, in Germany craftsmen increased pressure on the business community and the government for social and economic reforms. The Lindner firm was one of the major fortes in Sonneberg resisting these pressures from their craftsmen.

By 1831 American wholesalers were traveling regularly to the toymaking areas, and their German counterparts were coming to the United States. With a certain longing Page wrote,

Mr. Gerding of the firm of Gerding & Siemon has shipped himself for Germany in the same vessel, as I have my samples. Faith I do not know but what I may be guilty of that in myself some day as the example seems very contagious. (62)

Although we do not know if Page ever made the trip to Germany, his letters prove that he was very much a part of the international network of production and trade. His toy business survived a turbulent decade in New York City that included strikes, cholera, the devastating fire of 1835, the financial panic of 1836, the recession of 1837, inflation, and high unemployment. He typified the growing number of specialized merchants meeting a demand for specific goods and linking European suppliers and the broadening American market. Although these toys seem simple and even crude by today's standards, they were at the time among the most sophisticated available anywhere, produced and distributed by the most organized toy industry in the world.

I would like to give special thanks for her continued support to Waltraut Fritzsch of Dresden, the daughter and granddaughter of Erzgebirge toymakers, and to the Deutsches Spielzeugmuseum in Sonneberg for the privilege of using illustrations from the facsimile edition of Das Sonneberger Spielzeugmusterbuch. I would also like to acknowledge the help of the late Manfred Bachmann of Dresden, who made the impossible possible.

(1.) In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the term toy could refer to an assortment of small waxes, including children's toys, with the tradesmen selling them called toy-men or toy dealers. However; in the American colonies as early as 1725 the word toy was joined with children's. In the United States by the second quarter of the nineteenth century the term fancy goods clearly referred to small wares such as mirrors, beads, pipes, and breadbaskets, while the word toy was applied to children's playthings. For the use of the term toy, see Anthony Burton, "On Toy-Shops and Toy Sellers," V and A Album, vol. 3 (1984), pp. 116-127; and Emma Stiles, "Toys in Early American Stores," Spinning Wheel, vol. 25 (January-February, 1969), pp. 22-24.