Louis Marx

Louis Marx was born in Brooklyn on 11 August 1896 to Austrian Jewish parents, finished school at fifteen and went to work for Ferdinand Strauss, a maker of mechanical toys. He set up on his own and built Louis Marx and Company into the largest toy manufacturer in the world by the 1950s, on a simple principle: give more toy for less money, sold in volume through the new chain stores. Tinplate wind-ups, ride-on tractors, playsets, the Big Wheel and the yo-yo made him what the press called the Toycoon and the Henry Ford of the toy industry. He was on the cover of Time in 1955, and the moulds and dies of his company still circulate among collectors and small manufacturers.