The History of Play-Doh

Play-Doh is a non-toxic modeling compound which is made from flour, water, salt, boric acid and silicone oil when it was first manufactured to be used a a wallpaper cleaner back in the 1930's. Play-Doh is used by children to use for art and craft projects at home or in school. Play-Doh was introduced to the toy world back in the 1950's and between 1955 and 2005, over two billion cans of Play-Doh have been sold. In a 2003 roll call of the 100 most memorable and creative toys in the twentieth century, the Toy Industry Association named Play-Doh on its "Century of Toys List". Play-doh is one of the most popular childrens clay toys. I can still remember all of the hours of fun my sister and I had using Play-Doh to make pies, flowers, cows, horses. The possiblites were endless. We would spend hour after hour, squashing, pinching and rolling out our Play-Doh to create that perfect work of art. I still love Play-Doh to this day!

Hasbro currently manufactureres Play-Doh and says that the compound consists of water, salt, and wheat flour, however the 2004 United States patent of Play-Doh states that the compound is made by using water, a starch-based binder, a retrogradation inhibitor, salt, lubricant, surfactant, preservative, hardener, humectant, fragrance, and color. To give Play-Do its smooth texture, a pertrolum addtiive is used and to prevent the Play-Doh from molding, borax us ised. In 1957, chemist Dr. Tien Liu reduced Play Doh's salt content which dries out the Play-Doh but helps the color to stay and not fade.

Play-Doh is a non-toxic, non-staining, reuseable modeling compound and was created by Noah McVicker and he sold his creation to Kutol Products which is a family-owned soap company in Cincinnatti. Later on after World War 11, Joseph McVicker who is Noah's nephew joined Kutol Products he kept noticing that this wallpaper cleaner was being used by children to make Christmas ornaments with. Joseph reworked the product along with his uncle and brother-in-law and in 1955 gave the product its new name: Play-Doh, and then their company Rainbow Crafts was created in order to manufacture and distribute the compound. They sold the Play-Doh in single-gallon containers of red, yellow, and blue to schools around the Cincinnatti area. In 1956, Play-Doh introduced a three-pack which contained seven ounces of the compound in each can and Joe McVicker held several in-store demonstrations of Play-Doh and also took along some Play-Doh to educational convnetions to present his product to manufacturers of school supplies and soon several popular retailers opened an account with Play-Doh: Marshall Field's of Chicago and Macy's of New York.

Sources:
wikipedia.com