Durango semi-weekly herald., 1906-12-10


Sonneberg Is smaller city. OF
about twenty thousand inhabitants, :
surrounded by score or more OF
tributary villages and hamlets, which
are practically maintained by the
business of making toys of wood and
paper pulp. Every peasants cottage
in the vicinity is little toy factory,
in which each member OF the family
from the aged grandfather to the tod
dler of five brief summers, has an al
lotted task to perform. Plenty OF the
necessary raw material is obtaihable
from the nearby Thuringian forest.
In the neighborhood of Sonneberg
the business of making Noah's ArRs
has been handed down from genera
tion to generation for centuries. All
of the animals are carved by hand.
and some families OF peasants manu-
facture only the peculiar house boats
which serve as boxes to contain the
toy beasts. while other households re-
strict their production to very small
range of geological species. turning
ont II NAV be. only elephants and
hippopotami. or cows and came
From father to son, for hundreds oil
| wears. the modes have been trans
mitted. the pigs and rhinoceroses OIL
| today's output are exactly like those
| which the children of medieval Ger
many loved and played with. "
The animals are manufactured by
method most economical OF iaDof. the
initial process consisting in saving
out block of wood a foot or more
lu length. and in cross-section OF Just
about the dimensions of the beast 10
be represented. A few applications
of gouge reduce the block to such
shane that, when one looks at 1t end
i wise. it has the general form, let us
saw. of a cow 1t is then cut into a
series of slices, each OF the proper
proportional thickness, and is thus
converted into twenty-five or thirty
rough hewn cows, which require only
; to be touched up with carving tool.
painted and vanished, in order to be
, ready for market.
, 1t will easily be understood that
} when an entire family, including even
; the small children, devote their COM
: bined labor to the manufacture OF
Noah's Ark animals. under economic
&. conditions which have relation TO an
: extremely low scale of wages. the
| women commonly earning about
Y twenty cents a day, and the men not
/, more than twice that sum. the cost
+ OF production must be extremely low.
s Indeed, one can buy an ark of Some
y berg make in this country. containing
J. twelve assorted animals. for as little
s as five cents; and the price paid to
0 the humble manufacturer for such am
e article is only about a cent and
4 half.
= In the vicinity of Conneberg are
). produced immense numbers of tiny
G wooden dolls, carved by hand, which
r are sold by the peasants, who make
S them. for less than half a cent
y piece Rather curious it is. by the
, way. to find that villages in that re-
y gion appear to restrict their output
d to certain kinds of toys. manufactur-
e ing nothing else for generation after
e generation. Thus Elsfeld makes
II hobby horses almost exclusively;
1t Neufang turns out animals in fur and
e feathers: Schalkau is famous for its
d wooden guns, and other towns pro-
IS duce rattles. wagons, and trumpets.
l. In Hammern toy shops are carved by
u persons who have never seen the sea
or even a navigable river.
e From Sonneberg come those de-
e lightful baby bears which have be-
u come so hugely popular that the sup
ply has run short. Dealers on this
d side of the water recently have been
III sending frantic cablegrams. ordering
" them by thousands, but they are not
to be had in quantities adequate to
satisfy the demand. Many children
have adopted them In lieu of dolls,
and last summer at Atlantic City and
other seashore resorts well dressed
y, women commonly carried them in
. their arms, the toilet, apparently, not
:. being considered complete unless sup
~ plemented by baby bear
"The doll-making industry of Son.
:. neberg and its vicinity dates back
10 more than three hundred years."
- wrote one of our consuls to the state
- department not long ago. "Those who
do not sell dolls make them; those
l
Even the dogs, the goats, and the
cows haul carloads of dressed and
undressed dolls through the streets.
Everyone you meet has a basket in
his hand or a hamper on his head
for as many sham babies as there is
" room for. There is not a boy nor a
:, girl in the whole Sonneberg Valley
=, who does not hate and despise with
=, all the passion in their little breast
every creature in Doldom"
The Sonneburg Valley turns out
'e something like seventy-five millions
OF dolls every year. 1t is the birth.
l. place Of the papier mache doll-the
d composition employed being a mixture
m OF paper flour. chalk, and glue.
e Schools of drawing and modelling are
TX maintained by the municipality, and
IS attendance is compulsory: so that
al education in the industry begins with
le the little bOyS and pirls u,bo ora