MILLSTONE June 2018

• Edward Rutledge was the youngest signer of the Declaration of Independence at the age of 26 while Benjamin Franklin, 70 years old as the oldest. • Three U.S. presidents actually died on July 4. On July 4, 1826: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, who died July 4, 1831. • Americans began observing the Fourth of July as early as 1777, when the first-ever major celebration in Philadelphia included a parade, a thirteen-shot cannon salute and fireworks. • In 1870, almost a hundred years after the Declaration was written, Congress first declared July 4 to be a national holiday as part of a bill to officially recognize several holidays, including Christmas. • More legislation about national holidays, including July 4, was passed in 1939 and 1941. • Calvin Coolidge, our 30th president, was born on Independence Day. • July Fourth is the "biggest hot dog holiday of the year," with Americans reportedly consuming about 155 million of them on Independence Day alone. • Thomas Jefferson held the first held a Fourth of July celebration at the White House. • The Declaration of Independence was signed by 56 men representing the 13 colonies • Since 1846, the Liberty Bell has not been rung every 4th of July due to possible damage. • The Philippines, a country in Southeast Asia celebrates the 4th of July as the Filipino-American Friendship Day since 1963 after its liberation. • Two of the U.S. national symbols were made abroad: Statue of Liberty from France and the Liberty Bell from England • “Yankee Doodle,” one of many patriotic songs in the United States, was originally sung prior to the Revolution by British military officers who mocked the unorganized and buckskin-wearing “Yankees” with whom they fought during the French and Indian War. Did you know…. By Pam Teel

Did you know that famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s son John invented the Lincoln Logs that most of us played with as a child? From the Guggenheim Muse- um to Fallingwater, architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed some of America’s most iconic structures. Less known, however, is that another one of his designs inspired the creation of one of history’s most popular children’s toys, the Lincoln Logs. Growing up in Oak Park, Illinois, John Lloyd Wright spent hour after hour in the “wonderland playroom” designed by his father. Underneath a soaring barrel-vault- ed ceiling, the second child of famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright constructed his own wonders using just his imagination and a collection of assorted building blocks developed by Friedrich Froebel, the German educator who championed the concept of kindergarten. By the time he turned 24, John was working side-by-side with his father as chief assistant on the design of Tokyo’s Imperial Hotel. Faced with the challenge of build- ing a structure that could withstand the powerful earthquakes that regularly shook Japan, Frank Lloyd Wright sketched an ingenious design that relied on a system of interlocking timber beams that would allow the hotel to sway but not collapse in case of a tremor. (The Imperial Hotel would indeed be one of the few buildings that remained standing after the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake that devastated Tokyo.) The relationship between father and son, however, crumbled over money long before the earthquake-proof hotel was ever constructed. Out-of-work, John Lloyd Wright turned his attention to a pint-sized design project. In 1916, using the blue- print for the Imperial Hotel as a model, he created a toy construction set that con- sisted of notched pieces of wood that children could stack to build log cabins, forts, and other rustic buildings. Unlike Froebel’s building blocks, the interlocking system of miniature logs could withstand the shockwaves unleashed by children’s playing roughly with the toys. In 1918, John LloydWright began to market his creation through his own firm, the Red Square Toy Company, and two years later he received a patent for his “toy-cabin construction.” He bestowed upon his creation an alliterative name that also evoked

an American icon—Lincoln Logs. The toy came with instructions to build not only Abraham Lincoln’s Kentucky boyhood home, but a famous log structure from the pages of American literature, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The toy’s packaging featured a simple drawing of a log cabin, a small portrait of Lincoln and the slogan “Interesting playthings typifying the spirit of America.” Capitalizing on both nostalgia for the frontier at a time when the United States was becoming increasingly urbanized and a wave of patriotism in the wake of World War I, Lincoln Logs became an instant success. While restrictions on metals and other materials constrained the production of other toys during World War II, wooden Lincoln Logs continued to roll off factory lines. (The notched building logs, originally carved from redwood, are now manu- factured from stained pine.) Lincoln Logs peaked in popularity during the 1950s when it was among the first toys mass-marketed on television. The toy’s rustic brand tied in perfectly with popular children’s shows such as “Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier” that were watched by tens of thousands of young “baby boomers” on their black-and-white televisions. A century after their creation, low-tech Lincoln Logs continue to be popular in a high-tech world. Over 100 million sets have been sold worldwide, and Lincoln Logs were inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame in 1999. John Lloyd Wright attempted to build on the success of Lincoln Logs in the 1930s with Wright Blocks, a toy construction set with interlocking wooden shapes that allowed budding architects to build castles or other complex designs. Wright Blocks, however, proved too intricate and lacked the same appeal as Lincoln Logs. John LloydWright sold his company to Playskool in 1943 for only $800. The copy- right for Lincoln Logs eventually passed to toy companies Milton Bradley and Has- bro. Since 1991, the rights to produce Lincoln Logs have been licensed by K’NEX, which announced in 2014 that the stackable wooden construction sets would again be manufactured in the United States after years of being produced in China.

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