Clifton to be honored as hometown of the Slinky
State historical agency approves toy and former Eddystone business in this year’s list of honorees
Two historical markers have been approved for Delaware County — one to mark the significance of a childhood toy and the other for one of the largest rifle manufacturing plants in the country.
The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission announced Tuesday that its iconic blue signs with gold lettering have been approved to commemorate the Slinky Toy in Clifton Heights and the former Eddystone Rifle Plant in Eddystone. Of the now 65 markers throughout the county that have been approved by the commission, these are the first markers for Clifton Heights and Eddystone and the first for the county since landing a trio of new markers back in 2015.
According to a commission press release, the Eddystone Rifle Plant, opened by Remington Arms, was a 34-acre site that was the largest munitions plant in the country during World War I. Approximately 15,000 people were employed there and supplied nearly half of all infantry weapons issued to U.S. forces during the war, plus 600,000 for the British Army. The plant is remembered in part as the site of an explosion in 1917 that killed 139 people and injured hundreds more.
The plant was located by the Baldwin Locomotive Works Plant on land that is now the Eddystone Crossings shopping center.
In Clifton Heights, the accidental Slinky slinked its way from Philadelphia to the 300 block of East Madison Avenue in the 1950s. Inventor Richard James nearly ran the Slinky-producing company James Industries into bankruptcy in 1960 during a period of religious conversion and left his wife, Betty, and their six children. She turned the borough-based business into a multi-million dollar enterprise before moving operations to Hollidaysburg in central Pennsylvania, her hometown. Richard died in Bolivia in 1974.
The Slinky has been named listed on the Toy Industry Association’s “Century of Toys” list for the 20th Century and Betty James was inducted in the Toy Industry Hall of Fame in 2001. She died in 2008 at the age of 90.
Marker petitioner Robing Young of Media found out about the local connection to the stair-walking toy while doing a historical quiz in Pennsylvania Magazine.
“I was surprised, I never knew the Slinky was from Pennsylvania,” said Young on a Tuesday afternoon phone call.
Young, known for her work of telling the stories of historic women in the state – the county’s three historical markers in 2015 were for women Young successfully petitioned the commission for – had never heard of Betty James and started to investigate her.
“When I found out what she had done … I was shocked it was from someone around here and that it had a local connection,” Young said.
Though invented by her then-husband, it was Betty who named his spring-inspired toy as the Slinky, a Swedish word meaning sleek or sinuous. Richard invented the toy while working in a Philadelphia shipyard in 1943 as a project focusing on springs to help the ships in rough seas. Hundreds of the toys soldout in 90 minutes as part of a Christmas display at a downtown Gimbel’s store in 1945. They were sold for $1 each and were made out of high grade Swedish steel, according to Young.
Operations started out in a Germantown garage before moving to Clifton Heights for approximately 15 years. Hollidaysburg became the homebase of James Industries in 1965.
Even though the Slinky toy could be marked by its invention by Richard, the turning around of the company by Betty and at least three locations in the state, Young decided to commemorate the Slinky toy by itself and called Clifton Heights its home given how it took off under Betty’s leadership there.
With 21 historical marker approvals throughout the state, including those for Williamson Trade School in Middletown and for singer Ethel Waters in Chester, Young said the Slinky was the first time she petitioned for a toy to get a marker.
“A marker is like tearing a page out of a history book and pasting it up for the world to see. If you put it up, it could lead them to find out more,” she said.
Young also got approved this year a marker for abolitionists Isaac and Dinah Mendenhall in Chester County.
Markers must be placed within 14 months of being approved. Commission spokesman Howard Pollman wrote in a Tuesday email that the date of marker placement in Clifton Heights and Eddystone is up to the nominator who organizes the dedication event.
The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission approved 16 markers this year from 51 applications. Approximately 2,300 markers have been placed around the commonwealth.
“A marker is like tearing a page out of a history book and pasting it up for the world to see. If you put it up, it could lead them to find out more.”
— Marker petitioner Robing Young
of Media