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Michael Kimmel

Biography

Michael Kimmel

The great–grandnephew of the founder of the Ideal Toy Corporation, Michael Kimmel is a SUNY distinguished professor emeritus of sociology and gender studies and founder of the Center for the Study of Men and Masculinities at Stony Brook University. The author of GUYLAND and PLAYMAKERS, he lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Michael Kimmel

Books by Michael Kimmel

by Michael Kimmel - History, Nonfiction

In 1902, Morris and Rose Michtom invented the Teddy Bear --- bound by clothing scraps, stuffed with sawdust, and given button eyes with a sad, longing expression --- in the back room of their Brooklyn candy store. Together they launched the Ideal Toy Corporation, joining a set of other poor, first-generation Jewish toymakers: the Hassenfeld brothers of Hasbro, Ruth Moskowicz and Elliot Handler of Mattel, and Joshua Lionel Cowan of Lionel Trains. From Barbie and G.I. Joe to Popeye, Superman and Mr. Potato Head, PLAYMAKERS reveals how the toy industry created the idealized American childhood: an enchanted world, full of wild creatures and eternal struggles between good and evil, with endless realms of fantasy and beauty.