MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

At the beginning of the twentieth century, American toy makers, responding to the great popularity of beachside resorts, began to manufacture large quantities of chromolithographed tin sand pails. These were sold in five-and-dimes, retailing for about a nickel; they became ubiquitous at the seashore and playground. T Cohn, Inc., was one of these toy makers: Founded c. 1910 on the Lower East Side by Tobias Cohn, an Austrian-Jewish immigrant, the factory moved to Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, in 1921. Though small and family-run, T Cohn was for several decades considered one of the premier makers of sand toys and noisemakers in the country, known for brilliant colors and fine workmanship. In the late 1940s, T Cohn began to make play sets and later abandoned small items like sand pails. The firm made toys until the late 1960s, when it was sold to Brumberger, another Brooklyn company.

My talk focuses on a pail from the 1940s, which features cartoon-like animals that resemble characters from the period, like Disney’s Donald Duck and Borden’s mascot, Elsie the Cow. Touching on the processes of chromolithography and offset printing, on the group of Toy Men that dominated the industry during the period, and on the cultural landscape of early twentieth-century New York, my talk puts the rise and fall of a small family company at its center. That the family was my husband’s—T. Cohn was his great-grandfather—gives the information both historical and personal meaning.