McCormick messenger. (McCormick, S.C.) 1902-current, December 22, 1938, Image 3
McCORMICK MESSENGER. McCORMICK. S. C.. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 22, 1938
$250,000,000 U. S. Toy Business
Refashions Playtime Technique
WHITTLED DOWN TO SIZE!—Youngsters like to imitate
Mother and Dad, so toy manufacturers responded. Above: The
young-man-about-town with his streamlined car, featuring exhaust
pipes and a /classy paint job. Below: A Christmas morning mother
gives her dolly a thorough scrubbing in the doll bathinette shown at
World in Miniature to Greet
Youngsters This
Christmas
-
By JOSEPH W. LaBINE
“When I was a kid . .
Father speaking. When he
was a kid, Santa Claus brought
tin trains and crockery dolls,
tinker-toys and wooden wagons
that somehow fell apart the day
after Christmas.
So when Father walks
through a 1938 toy store his
eyas may well pop out at the
baby doll that can be fed,
bathed, powdered, dressed
and rocked to sleep, or the
streamlined automobile with
exhaust pipe, electric lights
and a horn to make youthful
pedestrians get off the road.
He may frown over “real” pianos
and motion picture projectors, but
these seemingly extravagant toys
are really much more sensible than
the tiddly-winks set Aunt Emma
gave him for Christmas many years
ago.
Old World Imitates Us.
The toy industrial revolution has
made the United States a world
headquarters for Christmas shop
pers, who migrate annually from ev
ery European nation—just to see
what’s new in the American toy in
dustry. Where a scant few years
ago our own toys came from
abroad, Japanese and German man
ufacturers now copy our products.
Often they attempt to sell cheap
imitations in the United States.
The revolution wasn’t spontane
ous; a dozen years ago struggling
American toy makers protested
when psychologists and educators
told them that jacks-in-the-box may
be amusing, but certainly not very
instructive. Armed with fancy fig
ures about child behavior and the
need for toys that would develop
young minds, these self-appointed
uplift societies forced their wares
on toy manufacturers. For several
years American youth was showered
with Christmas gifts it was sup
posed to like, but didn’t. - Sorely
puzzled, the psychologists were slow
to find a remedy: why not ask chil
dren themselves what kind of toys
they wanted?
So they tried it, and discovered
that American boys and girls like
nothing better than imitating Moth
er and Dad. That’s why 1938 Christ
mas toys stress miniatures—authen
tic reproductions of trains, automo
biles, baby buggies, bassinettes and
airplanes. At Chicago’s Merchan
dise Mart, where the toy-minded
visitor can get a comprehensive pic
ture of this new trend, it’s quite
possible that you’ll see a preview
of your 1940 automobile, ready for
delivery to a 10-year-old driver long
before the real thing rolls off an
assembly line!
Age Is Important Factor.
Briefly, toy manufacturers have
realized that children need new toys
and games to develop new abilities
All because of faulty electrical ap
pliances, fires and accidents will
spoil hundreds of Christmas gather
ings this year.
Though home should be the safest
place during the holidays, engineers
of Underwriters’ Laboratories, Chi
cago, point out that if you should
have an accident during the next
lew weeks, chances are good that it
will happen in your own home.
An estimated 125,000,000 electri
cal cords now being used throughout
the nation offer the greatest poten
tial danger at Christmas time, it is
pointed out. Cords receive excep
tionally harsh treatment, being
chewed by children and dogs, twist
ed and pulled, run under rugs and
walked on. Faulty plug and socket
connections often result, creating se
rious hazards.
Engineers explain that shock or
fire is less often due to electrical
wiring than to damaged cords. Safe
cord is manufactured under rigid
requirements, with ample copper
wire for carrying the current with
out overheating. There is also suf-
Merchandise Mart, Chicago.
as they grow older, just as they
need new clothes to fit their in
creasing stature. They’ve decided
to give children sensible toys, play
things built to stand abuse, to de
velop strong bodies and agile minds.
Having made peace with the edu
cators and psychologists, they’ve en
listed designers, chemists, profes
sional inventors and engineers to
help meet the new demand.
* When buying toys this Christmas,
you’ll be wise to follow the six ob
jectives prescribed by experts, who
say a child should have at least one
type of toy from each classifica
tion:
1— Physical exercisers.
2— Sense developers (color, tex
ture, s^ape and sound).
3— Building toys, for self-realiza
tion and consciousness of ability to
do things.
4— Make believe toys, devices for
imitative play.
t( Lights out,” says Rascal,
pulling the lamp cord. And if
the cord hadn't been given a
tougher pull test to make it safe,
it might have been “lights out”
for Rascal, sure enough.
ficient insulation over the wire to
prevent shock. To prove that rub
ber cord is sufficiently tough to
stand abuse, two inches of insula
tion must stretch nine inches with
out breaking. “Bombs” are used to
determine the condition of cord after
several months’ use. Bombs are
heavy steel containers in which rub
ber insulation is “bombarded” with
pure oxygen at high pressure to
cause rapid aging.
Since damaged or poorly con
structed cords are often responsi
ble for home fires and accidents,
special care is needed during the
Christmas season. Danger is espe
cially great between now and
March, the records show, since dur
ing that time a fire breaks out ev
ery two minutes.
5— Handwork materials leading to
arts and crafts.
6— Games that develop skill and
encourage play with other children.
But your selection should also be
guided by the table of values es
tablished by the same experts. The
correct toys for your youngster
should meet these requirements:
1— Durability.
2— Stimulation of self-activity.
3— Correct toy for the given age.
4— Principles of aesthetics.
5— Sanitation and hygiene.
Zippered Teddy Bear!
The latter factor is stressed by
modern toy makers. For the very
young child only vegetable dyes are
used. Sharp corners have been
eliminated and dangling appendages
(too easily detached and swallowed)
are taboo. There is emphasis on
forms and materials that can be
kept scrupulously clean. Even ted
dy bears are now made with a zip
pered skin that can be removed and
laundered, while many wood toys
can also be washed.
While adhering to these scientific
principles, toy makers have not for
gotten that their young customers
are primarily interested in being en
tertained. For example, it’s much
better for a child to develop muscle
and co-ordination through a foot-
propelled vehicle (like a toy auto
mobile or tricycle) than by calis
thenics.
Similarly, in the most pleasant
way possible, toys reveal talents
and aptitudes, often overcoming de
ficiencies. This is particularly true
of the sense developers, elementary
handcraft materials, musical and
rhythmic toys, and all materials for
simple graphic arts like crayons,
water colors and printing sets.
Tested ‘Under Fire.'
Every toy that finds its way to the
Christmas tree this year might well
bear the label, “Child Tested and
Approved.” After the inventor and
child psychologists have perfected
them, the playthings find their
way to nursery and sand pile for
thorough trial before being manu
factured in quantity lots. First, the
experimenters want to discover
whether their toy can stand up un
der hard wear. Second, it must hold
interest long after the novelty stage
has passed, which was one seriou*
fault with the toys yesterday’s chil
dren received each Christmas. By
New Year’s day they had usually
been consigned to the closet.
By additional experimentation
they discover what age group most
enjoys the toy, and it is manufac
tured accordingly. Many large
stores are segregating their toy dis
plays by ages this year, a boon to
the uninitiated uncle or aunt who
doesn’t know whether a three-year-
old girl should have a dress-up doll
or just a plain rag baby.
As for the toy makers, they’re
happy about the whole thing. Says
James L. Fri, managing director of
the Toy Manufacturers of the Unit
ed States: “By increasing the pur
posefulness of playthings, their im
aginative appeal and educational
value have been greatly enhanced,
and consequently the market for
toys has steadily broadened.”
<£> Western Newspaper Union.
Fire, Shock Hazards Threaten
To Mar Christmas Festivities
VT- : ifl! i- m =
WHAT to EAT and WHY
<$>-
C. Houston Goudiss Asks How Do You Get Your
Vitamin D? Relates Need for and Sources
Of This Necessary Vitamin
By C. HOUSTON GOUDISS
T HERE is scarcely a mother of a young baby today who
has not at one time or another been told to give her child
cod-liver oil. Perhaps she does not know this substance must
be given to the baby for the vitamin D that it contains. But
she has heard that there is something in cod-liver oil which
makes it valuable to the baby’s health.
A generation ago, cod-liver<5—
oil was given to children in the
winter time, “to build them
up” after colds or various
other respiratory illnesses. It
was not until 1921, however,
that a long series of painstak
ing investigations, terminat
ing in the discovery of vita
min D, made it clear that
cod-liver oil is valuable as a
source of vitamin D, and also
why this vitamin is essential
in the diet of growing chil
dren, as well as adults.
Discovery of Vitamin D
After years of patient work and
many thrilling and dramatic ex
periments, seven
forms of vitamin D
have been revealed
by science. And
scientists have also
solved the mystery
of how such widely
separated factors as
cod-liver oil; sun
light; a diet that is
rich in, and care
fully balanced with
calcium and phos
phorus; and ultra
violet light, all can perform the
same service for the body.
Readers of this column may
have observed that the discovery
of a number of the vitamins came
about chiefly through the efforts of
investigators to discover a method
of treating or curing obscure nu
tritional diseases. In most in
stances, however, carefully con
trolled laboratory experiments
played their part in reaching the
ultimate goal after some clue had
been found as to what the myste
rious substance might be that
helped to control a baffling nutri
tional disease. The discovery of
vitamin D was no exception!
Vitamin D and Rickets
Vitamin D is associated inti
mately with the prevention and
cure of rickets, the most devastat
ing nutritional disease of children
in temperate climates. Indeed, it
is the moderate, and in some cases
the small amount of sunshine in
the temperate zone that accounts
partially for the presence of
rickets.
Historians have given us reason
to believe that this disease may
have existed in England even be
fore the Roman conquest. Cer
tainly it appeared in a serious
form, both in England and in other
North European countries, in the
Seventeenth century. In fact, early
literature refers to it as the Eng
lish disease, and the early at
tempts to fathom its causes were
written in Latin by English and
Dutch doctors during the 1600’s.
In rickets, the child’s head
grows large and out of proportion
to the body, while the leg and
arm bones, and in severe cases
even the ribs, are bent and twisted
out of their normal shape.
Need for Calcium and Phosphorus
The two principal minerals re
quired for constructing the bones
and teeth are calcium, obtained
chiefly from milk, cheese and
green leafy vegetables, and phos
phorus, found in generous amounts
in eggs, whole grain cereals and
dried legumes. But one of the
things that made it so difficult for
scientists to determine the cause
of rickets was the fact that appar
ently well fed children, who had
plenty of calcium and phosphorus,
frequently developed the disease.
Mystery of Cod-Liver Oil
Cod-liver oil had been used for
many years because of its sup
posedly “tonic” or “building”
properties, when it was observed
that regular doses of cod-liver
oil not only cured rickets in chil
dren, but also cured the corre
sponding disease in adults, called
osteomalacia, in which the bones
become soft as the calcium and
phosphorus already deposited in
them are withdrawn and excreted.
Fat and Vitamin D
One of the strangest paradoxes
to the scientists in their early
investigations was the fact that
while cod-liver oil appeared to cure
rickets, another substance high in
fat—butter fat, did not. More re
search work was necessary before
it was discovered that while but
ter was rich in vitamin A, cod-
liver oil contained two vitamins,
one of which was later named
vitamin D.
Effect of Sunlight
More work was necessary and
it took years of patient effort be
fore science unraveled the mys
tery of how sunlight could have
the same apparent effect in pre
venting rickets as cod-liver oil.
Once nutritionists understood
how sunlight acting on a fatty sub
stance in the skin could produce
vitamin D, however, it was not
difficult to carry the process a
step further and learn how to forti
fy foods with a satisfactory con
tent of vitamin D.
Today we have at our disposal
irradiated milk, or milk to which a
vitamin D concentrate has been
added. Margarine, too, has been
enriched not only with vitamin D,
but with vitamin A so that this
moderate-priced spread for bread
has been made an effective vita
min carrier.
Natural Food Sources of Vitamin D
The richest natural sources of
vitamin D are the fish-liver oils,
including the liver-oil of the tuna,
swordfish, rock fish, salmon, hali
but, mackerel, cod and haddock.
The body oils of many fish also
furnish substantial amounts. That
accounts for the fact that canned
salmon has been regarded as such
a splendid food in the diet of chil
dren and adults. It is not only a
good source of protein and of en
ergy values, but it contains sub
stantial amounts of the minerals,
calcium, phosphorus and iodine,
and has been found to be an un
usually good food source of vita
min D.
Egg yolk contains small
amounts of vitamin D, and when
eaten regularly, the quantity is
enough to have a significant eft
feet in the diet of children.
Vitamin D Requirements
So important is vitamin D con
sidered, that the United States
Children’s Bureau advises that
cod-liver oil or some other form of
this vitamin be supplied to all
babies, beginning at the age of
two or three weeks.
Mothers should be guided by ths
advice of their physician in de
termining when to start the use of
a vitamin D preparation and what
quantities to give. But if they
want to give their babies the bless
ing bestowed on them by the sci
entists who discovered vitamin D,
they must not overlook this impor
tant substance.
As guardians of the health of
both children and adults, mothers
should see to it that vitamin D
is supplied regularly through ths
use of eggs and salmon; irradi
ated foods and those fortified with
vitamin D; and if necessary, fish-
liver oils or concentrates.
Miss G. M. L.—Yes, it is true
that sweet potatoes contain a
small amount of protein. In fact,
their protein is composed of four
amino acids known to be essential
to nutrition. Some of the protein
may be lost if the potato is boiled,
but it is entirely preserved when
the potato is cooked by dry heat.
Mrs. M. B.—Both cooked lentils
and baked kidney beans contain
over 20 per cent of carbohydrate.
Low carbohydrate vegetables in
clude cabbage, celery, oauliflower,
kale, lettuce and spinach.
®—WNU—C. Houston Goudiss—1938—4a
The Tallest Tree
The long-disputed claim as to
the whereabouts of the tallest tree
in the world is now officially set
tled. Records of the United States
forestry service at San Francisco
showed the world’s loftiest tree is
located in California. Government
computations fixed the height of
the record holder, a Sequoia in
Humboldt State park, at 364 feet.
Unconfirmed reports, circulated
for several years, told of Austra
lian eucalyptus trees 400 to 500
feet tall. World forestry statis
tics, however, limit the highest
known eucalyptus to 325 feet.—
Cleveland Plaindealer.
LJ AVE something brand new
A and smart, to cheer you up
during the after-holiday time
when you feel a little let-down.
Here are two of the very smart
est things you can wear, both just
as pretty and new as they can
be! And they’re so easy to
make that you’ll enjoy doing it,
and of course you’ll save, decid
edly, by choosing your own fab
rics. Each pattern is accompa
nied by a detailed se^ chart.
Soft Afternoon Dress.
This is a lovely design, very
smart and new. It does very nice
things to your figure. The wide
girdle makes you look doll-waist-
ed, the gathered bodice fills out
your bustline, and the full skirt
is extremely graceful. The high
neckline is scalloped to make it
softer and more becoming. In
velvet, silk crepe,- satin, or thin
wool, this will be one of the pret
tiest afternoon dresses you ever
owned I
Suspender Skirt With Jacket.
Here’s a perfectly charming
new princess skirt, in suspender
fashion, topped by a short little
tuxedo jacket. You can wear
the skirt with your own blouses,
or just with the jacket, so that
you’ll find it very useful. See how
tiny it makes your waist look, and
notice the cute, crescent-shaped
pockets. Very simple to make,
like all two-piece styles. Choose
tweed, wool crepe, plaid ©r
flannel.
The Patterns.
No. 1641 is designed for sizes
12, 14, 16, 18 and 20. Size 14 re
quires 4% yards of 39-inch ma
terial.
No. 1646 is designed for sizes
12, 14, 16, 18 and 20. Size 14 re
quires 3 Vs yards of 54-inch ma
terial with long sleeves.
Send your order to The Sewing
Circle Pattern Dept., Room 1020,
211 W. Wacker Dr., Chicago, IlL
Price of patterns, 15 cents (iq
coins) each.
© Bell Syndicate.—WNU Service.
HOUSEHOLD
QUESTIONS
For Creaking Shoes.—Rub the
sole of a creaking shoe with a
flannel dipped in boiled linseed oil.
• • •
Lintless Tea Towels.—Tea tow
els will not leave lint on china
and glassware if they are passed
through a weak starch solution
when laundered.
• * •
Repairing Torn Clothing.—Tri
angular tears in garments may
be neatly mended if the edges ara
first worked with a buttonhole
stitch, then caught together
through the stitches instead of the
material.
• • •
Removing Smell.—A piece of
lemon peel in the washing-up wa
ter will take away the smell of
onions, fish, burnt meat. It will
add a gloss to china, soften the
water, and keep the hands smooth
and white.
R EAD the advertisements in your paper regularly.
.You’ll find extraordinary values from time to
time, in all the hundred and one things that make
houses more attractive.
• Your budget will cover the improvements you
want to make if you plan your buying with the news
of bargains as a guide. Read the advertisements.