Playmakers: The Jewish Entrepreneurs Who Created the Toy Industry in America

by Michael Kimmel

A unique, illuminating story of the first–generation Jewish American toymakers who literally manufactured “the century of the child.”


In 1902, Morris and Rose Michtom invented the Teddy Bear in the back room of their Brooklyn candy store. Together, they launched the Ideal Toy Corporation into a prewar market rife with other first–generation American Jewish the Hassenfield brothers of Hasbro, Ruth Moskowicz and Elliot Handler of Mattel, and Joshua Lionel Cowan of Lionel Trains. In Playmakers, Michael Kimmel documents the creation of the idealized American childhood in the twentieth century—an idea developed but not experienced by its creators, whose parents often were poor immigrants from Eastern Europe. From Barbie and G.I. Joe to Popeye, Superman, and Mr. Potato Head, Kimmel follows Jewish toymakers as they climbed the ladder of success alongside Jewish comic book creators, children’s authors, parenting experts, and child psychologists. Playmakers shows how the overlapping experiences of being a Jew and a child in twentieth–century America—an outsider looking in, a person desperate to be accepted—created childhood as we know it today.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Jewish

432 pages, Hardcover

First published February 17, 2026

Reviews

[Logan Kedzie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Or how the Jews saved Christmas.

I find it hard not to be facetious about this book. The quick take review is that it is a book by an academic (well, former) that started as a family memoir on an interesting character and grew into something else. There is a host of great interstitial material here as the author puts together the sociological picture, but the mission creep around that initial framing makes the whole weaker than its parts.

As ideas about human psychology and Progressive political thought developed in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, further fueled by Capitalism and the changing nature of work and the workforce, it meant an increased focus on children and childhood. While childhood may not have been invented, the notion of of adolescence was, while the scope and need for a specific project around children to create good adults gained focus and intent. The material aspects of this were apparent from the beginning, but supercharged by the largess of the United States in the post-war economic boom. Once the economy could create childhood, it could then fashion them into a new market, outright or by proxy.

Into this gap came European Jewish immigrants, with the archetype as the first-generation immigrant, having grown up without much in the way of material goods, first wherever they came from under the deprivation or strife that got their families to immigrate in the first place, then in the relative poverty of the immigrant communities that their families moved into. As those children grow up, they turn into the manufacturers, both materially and intellectually, of all the stuff that makes up our image of childhood and children.

So, think of a toy, a cartoon, a comic book, a children's book: whatever you thought of, an American Jew was central to it coming into existence.

The business history here is strong. The stories about toys that did not become famous are great. Some of the moments of depth on a person, such as with Maurice Sendak, are good enough to be their own articles. And on that note, this book pairs well with Where the Wild Things Were in general, containing many of the same phenomena but under a different analytical lens. And that meshes with the overall scope of the project, providing interesting while not definitive take on the sociology of the culture of the United States through the years, with what pushed and pulled on that.

The weakness here is the desire to score points. The deeper dives are rare in comparison to the cataloging of each and every Jewish American immigrant or child of immigrants who contributed to the cultural makeup of the United States. This horizontal approach clouds more than it clarifies. It starts being a listicle.

This methodology subverts the thesis. Instances where the creators themselves considered Jewishness central to the project are given a similar weight to ones relying on the sophistry of a stoned collegiate to infer some sort of immigrant Jewish origin. It gets to '...tails you lose' territory: Fredric Wertham or Roy Cohn are out to sublimate their Jewishness by appealing to the elites and become a tool for Antisemitism; Theodor Seuss Geisel, got his career because people thought he was Jewish. My eyes about rolled out of my head in the discussion of Black dolls as a Jewish creation.

By mixing it all up, by treating useful citations on one creator with armchair psychoanalyst inferences about another creator, the useful history is snowed over.

There is a certain contradictory quality to the thesis, but what surprised me the most is the big-C Conservative conclusion. Maybe it is an inevitable flaw in these sort of books, where if the narrative is not 'well, that happened,' there has to be a cause, and that cause ends up benign essentialism. The conclusion here is that European Jewish immigrants to the United States were culturally disposed to perform as the scarequote "model minority," having assimilation as a core value due to their own history. Therefore, when a space was created, they could project that assimilation fantasy in a way that out-competed whites on whiteness. And I am not sure what to do with that, other than the way that I feel it is not where history as a study has been heading lately.

My thanks to the author, Michael Kimmel, for writing the book, and to the publisher, W. W. Norton & Company, for making the ARC available to me.

[Zoe Zeid · Rating 4 out of 5]

I knew many Jews invented some of our most famous toys/books/comics, but I didn't know how many! This was an interesting analysis about why first generation Jews created some of our most iconic toys. The timeline was a bit jumbled, but content was still good. I never thought about how Jewish owned/created department stores had such a big hand in creating the Christmas magic and commercializing it. Definitely recommend the audiobook!

[Luv2TrvlLuvBks · Rating 4 out of 5]

This extensively researched book shines a spotlight on the ingenuity first generation Jewish Americans played. Their talent and efforts find their way in the comic heroes that grace the screen, the comforting teddy bears that snuggle with children, and the iconic dolls (see: Barbie) who have a generational reach.

Using the framework of time, the Author tracks the societal changes America experienced from the restrictions on child labor to the the move of women from the kitchen to the office. Ironically, the latter created a fear of emasculation of men and the consequential growth of certain toys targeted to boys and girls. Besides this, the reader will be astounded by some facts. The colors of pink and blue, traditionally affiliated with girls and boys, was actually the opposite back then. The characters of famed superheroes like Superman or expressions used in the comic world have Jewish origins.

If you are the reader who believes that you never stop learning, this is a good read to choose. If you are the reader who desires a deeper understanding of Jewish American's contributions to this country's cultural phenoms, this is the book for you.

Thank you W. W. Norton & Company for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

#Playmakers #NetGalley

[Christine · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book looks at the history of the toy industry in America and the fact that the majority of the entrepreneurs that started it were of a Jewish background. Specifically, they were mostly Yiddish-speaking Jews who had immigrated to the U.S. in the late 1800s and early 1900s. While the title of the book implies that it focuses on the toy industry, the book also takes a very in depth look at everything from comic books to baseball cards to children's books.

While I enjoyed learning about the history of the toys - some of which I played with when I was growing up in the 70s - I thought the book spent more time on the lives of the people and the history of Jews in America, than it did on the toys themselves. I think if the book would have focused more on the toys, it would be more appealing to a broader audience. However, it's very well written and researched and worth a read if the subject is something that interests you. I think it's particularly suited to people in the baby boomer generation who grew up with a lot of these toys.

I received an advance review copy for free and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Rena · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit too discursive. Anything that distracts from the wondrous biographies of the toys brought my reading energy down. Yes, some contextual history helps, and I think the author spent too many words on what is background. Still there are juicy tidbits, like the dark (and unknown to me) backstory of the teddy bear - who used it as an emblem and why. And the swapping of gender colors - pink and blue - a bit more about that would have been welcome. Overall, a fun read as anything centered on toys should be. Silly Putty forever!

[Apilrain · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received an advanced reader's edition from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was extremely well done, insightful and thought out. I picked it up mainly because of the Teddy bear named after Roosevelt. I learned so much from this book, but will say it was heavier than I expected and I would have to put it down for a bit and come back to it. Highly recommend it though- was an excellent read

[S Ninn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Joy

[Rachel]

Review to come