![]() The Wright children's activities were centered on the playroom that their father added to their house in 1895. This compelled children to work out what was to be built through trial and error, forcing them to observe, take to pieces and to reassemble.īorn on December 12th, 1892, in Oak Park, Illinois, John Lloyd Wright was the second son in a family that would come to number four boys and two girls. Lincoln Logs required special care to repack and came in a much greater variety of sizes than today's version. ![]() His experimenting with the design of toy construction blocks reflected an education which emphasized rhythmic pattern, prefabrication, and construction from interchangeable elements. Similarly, Froebel's methods influenced John's system of design of both his buildings and his toys. Nevertheless, they failed to catch the public's fancy to the same extent as their log cabin predecessors and were not produced in any great quantity.” - Keith York The Wright Blocks were not only more abstract and modern than Lincoln Logs, but they were also more versatile and could be assembled into lighter, more open structures. Some sets were in a variety of natural woods while others were colored with watercolor stains. 2" sets of 36 and 70 pieces respectively, which differed slightly in the types of pieces they included and in the materials used. These were rectilinear, cross-grooved wooden blocks packaged in "No. In late 1949 he patented-and in 1950 began to sell-a new version of his Wright Blocks, an interlocking block set which he had first patented in 1933. According to biographers, Sally Kitt Chappell and Ann Van Zanten, “In the early 1950s, … renewed his activities as a toy designer, now concentrating on construction block sets. including the patented Lincoln Logs (working as John Lloyd Wright, Inc.). In revisiting and analysing the period between 1900-20, the years of Wright's youth, it is possible to capture the influences which led him to invent this historic toy in 1918.īefore being fired by his father, in 1918, John was designing his line of wooden toys for Chicago's Marshall Field & Co. Often overlooked, toys invariably reveal assumptions made by adults about the culture in which they live or the values they think desirable. Yet this paucity of research is most likely a result of the current embryonic stage of material cultural history.Īccording to the historian John Brewer, the attention devoted to 'high' culture has not been given to such things as costume, the tools of a trade, household utensils and furniture, and playthings. An architect by profession, Wright has remained somewhat anonymous, possibly because his accomplishments seem slight compared to the works of his father, Frank Lloyd Wright, one of America's foremost architects of the twentieth century. ![]() Perhaps this is because in 1939 a fire destroyed many of the documents from Wright's early career. To this date few have written about this famous toy and its creator. Interesting playthings typifying "the spirit of America"' was the slogan John Lloyd Wright used in 1918 to market and sell his new toy, Lincoln Logs.
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