Fisher Price Company
Fisher Price Founded in 1930 by Herman Fisher, Irving Price and
his wife, illustrator and artist Margaret Evans Price and Helen Schelle, the name Fisher-Price was established
by combining two of the three founders' names. Fisher worked previously in manufacturing, selling and
advertising games for a company in Churchville, New York. Price had retired from a major variety chain store,
and Helen Schelle previously operated Penny Walker Toy Shop in Binghamton, New York.

Fisher-Price’s fundamental toy- making principles centered on intrinsic play value, ingenuity, strong
construction, good value for the money, and action. Early toys were made of heavy steel parts and ponderosa pine,
which resisted splintering and held up well to heavy use. The details and charm were added with colorful
lithographic labels [1]. Mrs. Price was the first Art Director and designed push-pull toys for the opening line,
based on characters from her childrens books.
In 1931, the three founders took 16 of their wooden toys to the American International Toy Fair in New York City
and they quickly became a success. The first Fisher-Price toy ever sold was "Dr. Doodle" in 1931. (The same toy, in
excellent condition, would be worth a considerable amount in today's collectables market [2] .) In the early 1950s,
Fisher-Price identified plastic as a material that could help the company incorporate longer-lasting decorations
and brighter colors into its toys. "Buzzy Bee" was the first Fisher-Price toy to make use of plastic [3]. By the
end of the 1950s, Fisher-Price manufactured 39 toys incorporating plastics.
During the 1960s, the Play Family (later known as Little People) product line was introduced and soon overtook
the popularity of earlier toys. Herman Fisher retired at the age of 71 in 1969 and the Quaker Oats Company bought
Fisher-Price the same year.
In 1991, Fisher-Price regained its independence from The Quaker Oats Company and became a publicly traded
company. Two years later, in November 1993, Fisher Price became a wholly owned subsidiary of Mattel. A new
management team set the company’s focus on basic, infant and preschool products and began expansion into
international markets. By 1997 Mattel decided to market all of its preschool products under the Fisher-Price
name.



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