Evening star., 1900-12-15
Most of Them Now Are Made in
This Country.
FACTORIES BUSY ALL THE YEAR
WooIIy Dogs and Noah's Arks
Still Come From Germany.
BIG STMAS ADE


Written for The Evening Star.
| The American people will spend over $15.
| oO0.ooO for Christmas toys this year. The
| total sale of toys for the year has been
| estimated at twenty millions. OF this sum
| about 10 per cent is spent between Decem-
| bei and "a. Absolute figures have
| never been compiled. but careful canvass
among manufacturers, jobbers and import
ers approximates the sum given. Fully
| three-fourths of the money spent for toys
| passes through the big department stores,
which of late years have practically alb
| sorbed the retail trade. One firm that has
| houses in two different cities sells in its
| toy department over S400 900 worth year.
These sales made up principally of
small sums and represent the handling of
millions of pieces. Yearly sales ranging
| from one hundred to one hundred and fifty
| thousand dollars are effected by scores of
big retail concerns throughout the United
States. In large cities few important toy
| stores. pure and simple. still survive. In
Chicago there is none at all. There
| are any number of small places that sell
| toys. notions and stationery, but they make
| up very small proportion of the total
sales.
Until recently nearly all the toys that
were sold in America We're made abroad.
The output in the United States was in
| considerable. In the last ten or twelve
years all this has been changed, so that
| today less than one-third of Santa Claus
| offerings to the little folks come from Eu
| rope. The other tWo-thirds are made in
| the New England states, Pennsylvania and
Ohio and IN small factories here and there
| in some of the other states. New Eng
| land is the great producing center. The
distributing is done chiefly from New York
city, where a wholesale toy district has
grown up which Is almost as distinct as the
| dry goods district or the shoe district. 1t
| was formerly the that Immediately
| after Christmas factories and jobbers both
| shut down for several months, but now the
| toy trade has grown to such enormous
| proportions that work for the following
| year is begun as soon the holiday rush
| is over
Making and Marketing.
The main stocks are all manufactured
| before July. The drummers take the road
| late in March and early in April. Long
| before that time-in January and February
buyers have started for Europe to select
| the foreign stocks. These consist almost
| entirely Of the cheaper grades of wooden
toys, the more expensive mechanical toys.
| the cheaper sets of china dishes, great
| focks of woolly animals and dolls. The i'm
| portations run from five to seven millions
| per year, and of this sum three and a half
| to five millions goes for dolls. Nearly all
| the dolls come from Germany. The French
at one time had a monopoly, but the Ger
mans have learned to make heads so cheaply
| and so well that the people across the
Rhine have practically been put out of bus
| mess. Only the very expensive dolls are
now bought In France. America, SO far
has been unable to produce any dolls ex
| cept of the very cheap kind. Several con-
| Germs in this country have gone into the
making of dolls, but their progress mas been
slow. and very little headway is promised
| One concern in New York has fair output
In dolls with indestructible composition
| heads and cloth bodies. The people en-
nI-a6 horo fnr
Machinery has enabled the American IN
other lines to drive out the European man
ufacturer entirely. This Is notably true in
tin and iron TOYS. In these branches deyel-
opment on this side has been so great that
a considerable export trade has been built
up. Fire engines. hook and ladder trucks,
trains Of cars. patrol wagons, ambula2ces
and scores of similar things are turned out
by the ton. They are highly finished and
almost indestructible. The iron toys made
by foreigners fiimsy, crude affairs, and
when brought into competition with our
own productions stand no show. A high
tariff has kept the American out of the toy
market in Germany and France, but In
Russia, England. Italy and other European
countries there is hardly store today but
does not carry at least a small line of these
ingenious productions, nearly all Of which
come from Connecticut and Rhode Island
Pewter Toys at Small Prices
In the pewter toys. too. America has made
much progress. Switzerland at one time
sent about all the pewter toys made in
America. This continued until the domestic
manufacturers invented stamping machin-
cry, by means Of which they produce sets
of pewter furniture and dishes at figures
that defy the cheap labor of Europe. It Is
one of the marvels of the trade that an
entire set of pewter dishes, comprising six
pic ces and packed in a pasteboard box can
be retailed at five cents. 1t brings the
manufacturer about two cents. and this
though the nrst process the casting. Is done
by hand. The rough casts made in
steel and brass mods and passed to the
machinery for final shaping and polishing.
From mere handful the orkers en-
gagged In making the toys In America have
grown to an army of nearly twenty-five
thousand Their wages compared with those
of the toy makers of France and Germany
are almost princely. On the other side most
of the toys are made in the home. With all
the members of the family engaged In the
work, their united earnings will average
from s. to Sc a week, the latter sum only
where the family is unusually large and ex-
ceptionally Industrious Here the toy max
ers earn from three to fifteen dollars week
each. The boys and girls who do the pack
Ing are representatives Of the So class while
those who make as high as Sl0 are expert
ma chine workers.
American toys are made exclusively in
factories, except in Isolated cases where a
little hand work Is done at home. These
cases are so few and Insignificant that they
are not considered in the trade at all. A
small colony Of home-working toy crafts
men is to be found in West Hoboken. n J.
They are Frenchmen, who have settled over
here and produce few dolls. In Williams
burg, a section of Brooklyn, are number
Of German families in which the women
and children make few dollars each year
about holiday time crocheting gorgeous
frccks Of worsted about the swelling forms
of china dolls. AS some of these dolls are
sold for as little as ten cents, the earnings
of the people who make their dresses are
na imposing. IheYP
haps a dozen families in Williamsburg
among whom the trade still survives They