Business
50 Uses For a Dead Slinky
The Incredible Rebound of Slinky Maker Betty James
If you have kids or have been a kid, you eventually have a dead Slinky on your hands. The causes of death are many but the most common one is getting stepped on in the dark. Once the wires are bent from their original spiral there is no returning it to its original perfection. At best, a zombie Slinky will limp down a step or two before keeling over.
The principles of the Slinky were discovered accidentally by an engineer working with springs to steady shipboard equipment. He and his wife, Betty James, made 400 of the toys to sell at Gimbels department store. Sales were nil until the Slinky was demonstrated and then they sprang out the door in droves.
The couple continued making steel spirals for 15 years until, in 1960, our story takes a twist when Richard James decides to leave his family and move to Bolivia with an evangelical cult and translate bibles.
Despite being abandoned with massive debts and six children, Betty went on to build a multi-million-dollar manufacturing company selling a product that is now on permanent display in the Smithsonian. She lived to be 90 and, before her death, was inducted into the Toy Industry Hall of Fame alongside such luminaries as George S. Parker of the Parker…
