Hasbro Inc. (formerly
Hassenfeld Brothers) is an
American multinational toy and board game company. It is one of the largest toy makers in the world. The corporate headquarters is located in
Pawtucket, Rhode Island. The majority of its products are manufactured in
East Asia.
In 1923, three brothers,
Henry, Hilal, and
Herman Hassenfeld, founded Hassenfeld Brothers, a company selling textile remnants, in
Providence, Rhode Island. Over the next two decades, the company expanded to produce pencil cases and school supplies. In 1926, Hassenfeld Brothers was incorporated with Hilal leaving for another textile business while Henry took charge of the corporation. With cost of pencils rising and their pencil supplier making pencil cases, Hassenfelds began making their own pencils becoming a source of funding for future lines.[4]
In the
1940s, Hassenfeld Brothers produced doctor and nurse kits, its first toys, and modeling clay, becoming primarily a toy company by
1942. With Hilal's death in 1943, Henry Hassenfeld became
CEO while his son,
Merrill, became president.
The company entered the plastic fields during
World War II to support its toy line.[4] Hassenfeld Brothers' first toy hit was
Mr. Potato Head,[4] which the company purchased from inventor
George Lerner in
1952. The toy was a smash success. The company became a
Disney major licensee in
1954.[4]
In
1960, Henry died and Merrill took over the parent company and his older brother,
Harold, ran the pencil-making business,
Empire Pencil. Hassenfeld Brothers expanded to
Canada with Hassenfeld Brothers (Canada)
Ltd. in
1961. The company was approached in
1963 to license a toy based on a
Marine Corp based
TV Series, "
The Lieutenant", which they turned down as they did not want to be tied to a possible short lived
TV show.
Instead, in 1964, Hassenfeld Brothers produced the
G.I. Joe toy, which they termed an "action figure" in order to market the toy to boys who wouldn't want to play with "dolls." In 1964 and
1965,
GI Joe accounted for 2/3 of Hassenfeld's sales.
Having previously sold toys under the Hasbro trade name, the company shortened its name to Hasbro Industries in
1968 and sold a minor stake in the corporation to the public.
With the unpopular
Vietnam War at its height in
1969, Hasbro redesigned GI Joe to be less militaristic and more adventure orientated.[4] Its promotional efforts included the catchphrase "
Boy Oh Boy!
It's A Hasbro Toy!" in television commercials and print ads.[citation needed] Also in 1969 Hasbro bought Burt
Claster Enterprises, which produced "
Romper Room" and had just begun a Romper Room toy line. A month-long
Teamsters strike and
Far Eastern supplier troubles caused the company to have a $1 million loss for the year.[4]
In
1970, Hasbro began a plan of diversification and opened the Romper Room
Nursery School franchise chain to cash in on
President Richard M. Nixon's
Family Assistance
Plan which subsidized day care for working mothers. By
1975 the company had ended
the nursery chain. Hasbro also entered the cookware field with the
Galloping Gourmet line based on a contemporary television cooking show. With an attack of termites on the line's salad bowls, the line collapsed.
Two new
1970s toys were public relations disasters. One of the toys was named
Javelin Darts which were similar to the ancient
Roman plumbata. On
December 19,
1988, the
Consumer Product Safety Commission banned lawn darts from sale in the
United States due to their hazards as a flying projectile with a sharp metal
point causing multiple deaths.[5]
The other toy was named The Hypo-Squirt, a hypodermic needle shaped water gun tagged by the press as a "junior junkie" kit. Both were recalled. While Romper Room and its toy line had continued success,
Action for Children's Television citizens group considered the program as an advertising channel for toys.[4]
Merrill Hassenfeld took over as CEO in
1974 with his son,
Stephen D. Hassenfeld, becoming president. The company became profitable once again, but had mixed results due to cash flow problems from increasing the number of toys in the line to offset G.I. Joe's declining sales. In 1975, the G.I. Joe line was ended by Hasbro, caused by the rising price of plastic via its raw material and crude oil's increasing prices.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasbro
Image By slgckgc (
Katy Perry at the
Prudential Center) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/
2.0)], via
Wikimedia Commons
- published: 18 Sep 2014
- views: 703