Lincoln Logs: Toying with the Frontier Myth

"America's National Toy" has been mass marketed for nearly 100 years now but it actually originated in Springfield, Vermont a half century earlier.

A History of Lincoln Logs 

In the 1910s, American builders were busy on construction sites in the city and in the playroom. Introduced just after Tinkertoys and the Erector Set, Lincoln Logs were yet another construction toy to make it big during the decade. John Lloyd Wright, son of architect Frank Lloyd Wright, brought out the line of sturdy, interlocking logs in 1916. Wright claimed that the foundation of Tokyo’s earthquake-proof Imperial Hotel, which he saw while it was under construction, inspired the shape of his logs. 

Many have claimed, however, that John Loyd Wright's Lincoln Logs were simply a modified version of Joel Ellis' 'Log Cabin Playhouse', invented in 1866 in Springfield, Vermont. They support this contention with the speculation that John probably played with such a toy as a child. Whether or not this is true, there is evidence that other forces may have inspired him to create this log cabin toy and break conventional marketing techniques (rather than including a photograph of children playing with logs, John packaged his toy in colourful boxes with a simple drawing of a log cabin on the front). Even though the log cabin was a Swedish import and had not been adopted by English settlers until well into the eighteenth century, between 1840 and 1918, writers and illustrators had mythologised log cabin living. Dramatised in the presidential campaigns of 1840 and 1860, the log cabin came to be identified with democracy and the frontier spirit as Americans began to marvel at their own progress and to make a virtue of their early struggles with the wilderness. These sentiments were confirmed with the publication of Mary Newton Standard's widely read Colonial Virginia in 1907, which erroneously concluded that Virginian settlements consisted of log cabins. It was during this period when the log cabin 'myth' was at its full height, and when the virtues it carried appeared to be under threat, that Wright developed his toy -- a toy which reinforced the myth, and reminded American children of their proud heritage.

Joel Ellis' Log Cabin Construction Toy

Lincoln Logs turned out to be a toymaker’s dream. The original sets were an instant success, and after World War II, sales of Lincoln Logs got another boost from the baby boom. The sets were popular among postwar parents because they were more sophisticated than plain building blocks but still challenged children’s powers of concentration and eye-hand coordination. Ironically, Lincoln Logs—long a favorite of proponents of educational toys—were among the first toys to be promoted on a television show, 1953’s Pioneer Playhouse. The ads targeted affluent parents, who were most likely to own a television set and to buy educational toys. Sometimes a toy that has had a previous life returns to catch the eyes of children at just the right moment in history. 

As late as 1975, Lincoln Logs were still selling at a rate of one million sets a year.

-- History Today, April, 1993 by Erin K. Cho