The Early History of Breyer: 1943-1952

  "There's a great future in plastics. Think about it. Will you think about it?"

These lines from the 1967 movie The Graduate---advice offered to Dustin Hoffman's character at his college graduation party---have always stuck with me (even when little else from the film did). I watched the movie for the first time some 30 years after it was released, and I thought the lines were kind of funny at the time. I mean, duh, plastic is ubiquitous in modern life, right? But while plastic is a part of everyday life that we often take for granted, it absolutely revolutionized life as we know it after World War II. In the 1960s when The Graduate was made, the plastic industry was still booming and growing.

The history of plastic dates back to the 1830s, but it took decades for the process to be refined and perfected. Some of the earliest uses included billiard balls (ivory had become expensive and rare) and then film and phonograph records.[1] The dawn of the 20th century saw greater leaps in manufacturing technology, and plastic became more accessible, appearing as nylon in tooth brush bristles, as the ever-popular Bakelite jewelry, and in celluloid vanity sets (hairbrushes, hand mirrors, etc) and other decorative wares. Simple celluloid toys became available by the 1930s, most of which were manufactured in Germany, the largest importer of toys to the United States before World War II.[2]

As tensions in Europe rose in the late 1930s however, imports from Germany slowed to a trickle, and wood, composition, and metal toys produced in the United States began to grow in popularity and numbers. Plastic technology continued to improve, but with the advent of World War II, most American plastic manufacturing was diverted to the war effort. Manufacturers learned a great deal during those years, and when the war finally ended, the plastic industry truly took off. Toy magazines and catalogs from the late 1940s clearly show the swift transition from wood, composition, and metal toys to plastic---by 1950, the switch was pretty much complete. Injection molding technology had also arrived which revolutionized the process of making goods in terms of speed, cost, and safety. [3]

The post-war baby boom and the advent of television and all the advertising tie-ins that came with it produced a huge audience for new plastic toys. And this is where the Breyer Molding Company comes into the picture. New plastic manufacturers were sprouting up all over the country in the late 1930s and 1940s, especially once the US joined the war. Plastic production increased by 300% during those years to meet the huge demand [4], and Breyer was one of the companies that rose to the challenge.

The Breyer Molding Company as model horse collectors know it began in 1943 at 2536 W. Lake Street just west of downtown Chicago in the heart of the city's manufacturing district. Peter Stone (yes, that Peter Stone) related to Breyer historian Nancy Young that his father Sam Stone and business partner Barney Smith bought the company for $15,000 knowing nothing at all about the plastic molding business.[5] Smith died unexpectedly in November 1947, and Charles Schiff joined the company in his place.

Many collectors have wondered where the Breyer name came from, and despite the company being in business for more than 80 years, it's been an enduring mystery. To the best of anyone's knowledge, there was never an "old man Breyer" who started the company. Stone and Smith purchased the company with the Breyer name from a family called Shoecraft, and Peter's best recollection was that the name honored "a 19th century German chemist who invented a type of cellulose plastic."[6] I have spent months digging through archives, contacting museums and historical organizations devoted to preserving the history of chemistry and plastic, and reaching out to various academic institutions around the world in hopes of finding some clue as to who this chemist was, but all of my searching has come to naught. No one has any record of a chemist named Breyer, not even one without a connection to early plastic experimentation.

I did however find a Nobel prize winning 19th century German chemist by the name of Adolf von Baeyer who was primarily known for his work synthesizing indigo dye, but who is also famous for inventing a precursor to what later became Bakelite. The name is off by one letter, but it's easy to confuse a capitalized A with a capitalized R (and Breyer's logo is capitalized), so Baeyer might have accidentally been misspoken, misread, misspelled, mistranscribed, or misremembered as Breyer. I can't prove that von Baeyer is the inspiration behind the Breyer name, but he is the only 19th century German chemist whose name and work comes at all close to matching Peter's recollection, so I think this is a plausible source for the name.

That said, it is also possible that the story about the German chemist was apocryphal. For all we know, the Shoecraft family had a relative, friend, mentor, or financial backer named Breyer. We'll probably never know. But if Peter's memory was correct, Adolf von Baeyer might just be the namesake we've been looking for all these years.

With World War II in full swing in 1943, there was a tremendous need for plastic parts for the war effort for airplanes, various military vehicles, and other equipment, and Breyer was commissioned to make everything from radio housings to steering wheels.[7] After the war ended and the demand for parts from the government waned, Breyer continued to design and mold items for other companies like RCA and Zenith [8], and they began to develop their own products as well, such as checkers, poker chips, and other simple toys. As you can see from the 1946 ad below, the Breyer factory was a one-stop-shop for plastic production from concept to creation---they designed items, made molds for said items, and produced plastic items from their molds.

A Breyer ad from the 1946 edition of The Buyers' Guide
and Industrial Directory of Chicago

Breyer's earliest forays into the toy market were vaguely educational. Peter Stone related to Nancy Young how as a boy helping out at the factory, he would load the warmed plastic pills for molding poker chips and checkers into the compression molding machines [9]. Breyer also briefly sold a Money Manager bank from 1949 to about 1953. They were molded in "superior quality acetate Tenite" [10] as per the ad below and came in "flag red or forest green" with 4 or 6 drawers. They included labels so children could save their money for different things like presents, charity, and savings.

March 1950 Toys and Novelties ads

The 1950 Sears Christmas catalog also advertised a Breyer-made Cigarette Host molded in "tortoise shell color plastic" right alongside the Money Manager. (Perhaps not the best product arrangement for the page.) All of these early non-animal Breyer products are hard to find.

 

 

As I wrote in my posts about the history of the Western Horse, the Breyer factory was located only a few miles from the Mastercrafters Clock and Radio Company. In 1950, Breyer was commissioned by Mastercrafters to take over some molding work that had formerly been done by Hartland Plastics of Wisconsin. This work resulted in the iconic Western Horse, the very first Breyer model. As I discussed in the Western Horse blog series, the Breyer Western Horse was a very close copy of the Hartland Victor, and it was also Chris Hess' first horse sculpture for Breyer. Though no one knew it at the time, this sideline of plastic horses would eventually eclipse all of the other practical plastic goods Breyer made and become the company's primary product and main claim to fame.

The very first Breyer models, the Western Horses Over Clocks

Breyer provided horses for Mastercrafters for a few years, first to stand over the clocks (probably 1950 only) and later to stand beside the clocks (circa 1951-1952). By 1951, Breyer also had begun to sell the Western Horses as freestanding models in palomino and alabaster. Early records and company lore suggest that Woolworths department store placed an order for 2,000 of the freestanding Western Horse models to sell in their stores. [11]

In June 1952, Breyer's business was booming, so much so that they built an 11,000 sq foot addition to their factory. [12]

Me (with a Breyer PAM and her Chicago-era box) posing like
the giant nerd I am in front of the old Chicago Breyer factory

By late 1952, Breyer had begun producing their second and third molds, a Boxer dog and the Western Pony. Which came first is debatable, but the Boxer was at least promoted in the Chicago toy publication Toys and Novelties. (I have yet to find a similar ad announcing the Western Pony, but hope springs eternal.) The Western Pony is a smaller version of the Western Horse, so in that regard, it too is technically a derivative of the Hartland Victor from which the Western Horse was copied. The Western Pony came in both palomino and white like his big brother, and the striking black colorway with gold feet was introduced for both models at this time as well.

The Breyer Boxer model was yet another copy, although this time unauthorized. It was molded directly from the fine porcelain Boxer sculpted by Edward Boehm and sold by his studio in New Jersey. Chris Hess, who was a sculptor, carver, and mold maker, most likely tooled this mold for the company. Copying the works of other contemporary companies, especially those producing ceramic or porcelain wares, became a common theme for Breyer in the 1950s and into the early 1960s. The glossy and occasionally chalky finishes on some of their early models were in fact meant to imitate fine porcelain!

March 1953 Toys and Novelties ad

Boehm Boxer (left) and Breyer Boxer (right)

I had intended to try to cover all of the 1950s in this post, but Breyer production really began to take off in 1953-1954, and this post is already pretty long, so I will cover the rest of that decade in a subsequent post. In the mid 1950s, Breyer continued to copy other manufacturers, but they also began to create their own sculptures as well. The next post will cover the rise of TV show tie-ins, holiday catalog special runs, a lawsuit for copyright infringement, and much more!

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1) Science History Institute Museum and Library: https://sciencehistory.org/education/classroom-activities/role-playing-games/case-of-plastics/history-and-future-of-plastics/

2) Lone Star Chemical (plastic manufacturer): https://lonestarchemical.com/50-years-of-favorite-plastic-toys/

3) Syracuse University Library, The Plastics Collection: https://plastics.syr.edu/page.php?id=/essays/plastic-toys

4) Science History Institute Museum and Library: https://sciencehistory.org/education/classroom-activities/role-playing-games/case-of-plastics/history-and-future-of-plastics/

5) Young, Nancy Atkinson. Breyer Molds and Models: Horses, Riders, and Animals 1950-1997. (Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing Ltd, 1999), pg. 332.

6) Ibid

7) Ibid.

8) Walerius, Marney J. Breyer Models: Reference and Insurance Guide. (Barrington, IL: Self published, 1991), pg. 1.

9) Young, 332.

10) Tenite is a kind of cellulosic plastic (cellulose acetate) made by Eastman (Kodak) starting in 1929
https://www.eastman.com/Brands/Tenite/Pages/Overview.aspx

11) Past iteration of the breyerhorses.com website

12) "10 Million Will Be Spent by Chicago Plants," Suburbanite Economist, (Chicago, IL), June 22, 1952, pg 48.