Slinky Spring Toy Day

The “walking” spring “Slinky” is one of the most recognizable toys all over the world; it can easily be attributed to the symbols of the twentieth century Moreover, the Discovery Channel truly recognized it as one of the iconic toys of the 20th century Almost every child of several past generations had such a spring, not only in the USA, but also in Germany, France, Russia, Turkey and a number of other countries Slinky even has its own holiday - Slinky Day, which is celebrated annually on August 30th Not every toy receives such recognition Russian children know the walking spring under the names “rainbow”, “rainbow spring”, “spiral”, “ondamania” Let's look at the history of its appearance and success Slinky was created in the USA in difficult post-war times - in 1945 It owes its existence to Navy mechanical engineer Richard James One day, in 1943, he conducted an experiment related to the tension of springs One of the springs at the man's disposal accidentally fell to the floor and tumbled several times from one end to the other It looked like a spring was walking, which Richard thought was funny Therefore, he decided to demonstrate this trick to his wife Betty The couple came to the conclusion that such a simple detail could make a real toy Of course, then they had no idea how popular this invention would become The funny little thing needed a name and Betty found it in one of the dictionaries The Swedish word Slinky, which means sinuous or mysterious, seemed most suitable to the couple The toy became famous under this name The first batch of Slinkys was released in the fall of 1945 To make this possible, Richard had to take out a loan The presentation was timed to coincide with the Christmas celebration The first attempts to sell walking springs through small toy stores were unsuccessful But they met unexpected success with the public in a large supermarket in Philadelphia Richard James himself demonstrated the batch of toys to customers, and they sold out in just an hour and a half Since that presentation to this day, more than 250 million Slinkys have been sold worldwide Initially, they were produced in a black and blue color that was not very attractive to children, which was due to the characteristics of the manufacturing material Subsequently, they began to be produced from a lighter metal, and later in various bright shades and rainbow colors Children used these springs to walk up the stairs, wore them on their wrists as bracelets, and jumped over them as if they were jumping ropes Richard James left the service in 1946 and, together with his wife, opened a factory for the production of springs This business provided enormous financial success to the family The factory produced both the classic Slinky and other toys based on them Walking springs are still produced exclusively in the United States and in the very factory that the James couple organized They have remained virtually unchanged, only slightly adjusted in accordance with modern safety standards Children from different countries still run Slinky today And adults use them as a tool for relieving stress and developing coordination, a pencil holder, and a tool for demonstrating physical phenomena The funny little thing even found application in space experiments to study zero gravity The toy has become a true American classic and can be seen in a number of famous films She is also immortalized on a collectible postage stamp issued in 1999