NOTEWORTHY INVENTIONS:
SLINKY
• Richard James, born in Delaware in 1914, grew up to become a mechanical engineer. During World War II, he worked in a shipyard building tools for subs and ships. • One day in 1943, while working on a system to stabilize instruments on ships, he accidentally knocked a box of spare parts off an overhead shelf. In the resulting mess, he was amused to see a long spring wobble and then fall, walking its way down a stack of books, across his desk, and down to the floor. Richard played around with the spring for the rest of the day, highly entertained. That evening he told his wife Betty that he thought he could get it to walk down a ramp or a flight of stairs if he could only get the tension right. • Over the course of the next year, he experimented with different types of wire before finding that high carbon steel wire half an inch in diameter and curled in a coil would “walk” effortlessly down a flight of stairs. His wife Betty named it, dubbing it the Slinky not only because that’s what it did, but also because that’s what it sounded like. • Richard formed a company, had 400 of them made, and distributed them to toy stores. It was a major flop. No one bought them. When Richard scored a major deal with Gimbels department store in Philadelphia just before Christmas, he was sure his fortune was made, but even Gimbels couldn’t sell them. • Finally, he took matters into his own hands. He showed up at Gimbels one afternoon and put on a show right there in the middle of the store, demonstrating all the neat things the Slinky could do. Ninety minutes later, he had sold all 400 of them, and there was a line out the door demanding more. By Christmas, over 20,000 had sold.
• Richard opened his own factory in Albany, New York, where he could turn out a Slinky in five seconds flat. Each was 2.5 inches tall, contained 80 feet of high-grade blue-black Swedish steel wire wrapped into 98 coils, and came packaged in simple box. The following year, the debut of the Slinky at the American Toy Fair in New York City ensured the success of the toy. By the end of 1947, the fad had swept the nation. • He sold over a billion of them at $1 each, raking in the revenue. Later he introduced other Slinky toys, such as the Slinky dog, the Slinky caterpillar, and the Slinky train. • But it was his wife Betty who carried the business when Richard abandoned the project, gave his entire fortune to charity, fled to Bolivia, and left her saddled in debt just as the fad was fading and sales were declining. • It was Betty James who commissioned a TV ad with a jingle that became the longest running jingle in the history of TV: “Everyone wants a Slinky; You want to get a Slinky.” She championed the plastic tangle-free version of the toy. She paid off the debt, reinvigorated sales, and negotiated a spot in the movie “Toy Story” which boosted sales once again. • All in all, she sold enough Slinkys to circle the Earth 121 times, earning herself a spot in the Toy Industry Association’s Hall of Fame. “The simplicity of the Slinky,” she told an AP reporter in 1995, “is what made it so successful.” In 1945, the Slinky sold for $1.00; by the late 90s, the same model sold for just 89 cents more. • Richard James died in Bolivia at the age of 56, but Betty James lived to the age of 90. She died in 1998, having revolutionized the business her husband started and abandoned.
Answer
Weekly SUDOKU
Answer
King CROSSWORD
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