Mister Mis-Identified (Part Two) by Ken Foust

As noted in last month’s ATW, not one but two articles regarding Leo Schlesinger and Company were published in the early Twentieth Century. One appeared in the February 1900 edition of Puritan magazine as “Behind the Scenes in Toyland”. On December 6, 1902, a visit to Schlesinger’s toy factory was the cover story for Scientific American. The Puritanpiece was written by Charles Culver Johnson, and he may have authored both articles. Each story includes numerous photographs; two of which appear in both publications. It may be noteworthy that every picture in the Scientific American article is marked “Sci Am NY” including the shared ones. In any case I’ve included various passages from each publication, and some related photos. I’ll start with comments from the Scientific American. “In the quarter of New York’s “East Side” imbued with the half-European, half-American, atmosphere so characteristic of Bohemian, Hungarian, and Polish settlements in America, a toy factory is situated which furnishes children of our Eastern States with cheap, gayly-colored playthings. The factory, industrially considered, is a picturesque combination of modern labor-saving and old-fashioned labor employing methods; for the most ingenious machineryand the simplest form of hand labor work side by side. There are some things that machinery can never do; and for that reason the factory girl cannot be dispensed with – in a toy factory at least.” “From roof to cellar, the interior of the New York factory referred to is a chaos of flaming color. Paint – red paint, green paint, yellow paint, paint of all possible hues – is spread with lavish hand on the tin. The factory girls are besmeared with it; every floor reeks with it.”

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