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Jewish Literary Voices: A Federation Series in collaboration with The Jewish Book Council

In 1902, Morris and Rose Michtom invented the Teddy Bear in the back room of their Brooklyn candy store. Together they launched the Ideal Toy Corporation, joining a set of other poor, first-generation Jewish toymakers: the Hassenfeld brothers of Hasbro, Ruth Moskowicz and Elliot Handler of Mattel, and Joshua Lionel Cowan of Lionel Trains.

Playmakers reveals how the toy industry created the idealized American childhood: an enchanted world, full of wild creatures and eternal struggles between good and evil, with endless realms of fantasy and beauty. For much of the twentieth century, every part of the American toy business was largely Jewish—the company founders, executives, and designers, as well as the factory workers, wholesale distributors, retail outlets, and armies of salesmen. Michael Kimmel, SUNY Distinguished Professor of Sociology Emeritus at Stony Brook University, shows how these poor, Yiddish-speaking, tenement-dwelling children of immigrants invented a world they never experienced for themselves. Kimmel also portrays the rise of an entire culture focused on children, led by Jewish comic book creators, children’s authors, parenting experts, and child psychologists.

Kimmel’s story conjures the colorful, imaginative, restless spirits who followed the promise of the American Dream—and describes the ways they created childhood as we know it today.

Purchase the book HERE and a portion of the proceeds will be donated back to a local independent bookstore in the Berkshires.