My name is Walter Meyer and Mary Meyer was my Mother and I grew up in the stuffed toy business.  Today Mary Meyer stuffed toys is located in Townshend, VT, where  I live also.

Mary Meyer’s business began in New York City in 1933.  In those days we were at 3 West 29^th Street, on one of the upper floors, which was just off Fifth Ave.  behind the Marble Collegiate Church.  

In 1937 the family and business the moved to Cranford, NJ and in 1945 we moved to Vermont, where we are today.  My Dad, Hans Meyer, had stomach ulcers from the stress of business and wanted to live a quieter, lower stress life.

In the late 1930’s Mary Meyer was designing, manufacturing and distributing their line of animal pin cushions and oil cloth covered stuffed toys and selling them to major department stores like Marshall Field in Chicago and JL Hudson in Detroit and chain stores like Woolworths, Kresge and WT Grants.

In the 1930’s and early 1940’s Dad, being the company’s salesman, would travel all over the eastern USA as far west as the Mississippi River by train calling on his customers.  I still have the accounting journals that show all the customers, shipments and the amount they bought in 1935, 1936, 1937, etc. – up to 1944.

Being based in the New York City area at the time, he also visited the buying offices of the chain stores.  At that time buying offices were places where manufacturers and salesmen could show their products to representatives of the department stores, who then pass their advice on to the head buyer and to the stores.

In the late 1930’s Mary Meyer’s main products were animal pin cushions.  The assortment of pin cushions we made included a Scotty, a Cat, an Elephant, a Duck, a Lamb, a Horse and later a Camel.  Mary Meyer also made a doll pin cushion, which was not as popular, but we have bought 3 of them during the past 5 years on the internet.  I believe the Pin Cushion Dolls were made in the late 1930’s – about 1938.

In 2007 my daughter Linda found one on the internet and purchased it for our Mary Meyer museum.  It was from Kansas.  About 6 months later she found a second one, which she purchased for her own collection.  A friend found a third one for her Mary Meyer collection.  The dolls were not as popular as the animal pin cushions.  I do not believe we manufactured more than a few thousand pieces but 70 years later we have found 3 dolls.  Possibly there may be more out there.

I know the dolls are ours because I remember them as a youngster.  They also have a Gold foil string tag on them that says “Mary Meyer – Pin Cushion – Hand Made”.  The photo of the pin cushion doll we have is shown here along with an enlargement of the Mary Meyer Gold foil hang tag.

 The silk-screened faces came from Crescent Hill Novelty Co. in New York City, a supplier we used for many, many years.  Mother and Dad used them in the 1930’s and 40’s and I used them in Vermont from the 1950’s until the early 1980’s.  They supplied doll and monkey faces and other toy parts to the toy manufacturing trade.

The body was made from colorful cotton percale  and the body parts were cut with an up-and-down knife cutting machine or a cutting machine with a circular blade.  The garment industry used these same cutting machines to cut out all types of clothing.  The sewing was done on a commercial sewing machine and sewn wrong side out.  The toy is sewn wrong-side-out, so the seams won’t show after the toy is turned right-side-out.   An opening for turning and stuffing is left in the back of the toy in an inconspicuous place.

The stuffing was the next operation and done by hand.  The cotton used was usually garneted cotton, which made from cotton fabric scraps left over from the weaving or manufacturing trades.  These scraps and pieces are accumulated and purchased by a company, who shreds pieces of fabric. This brings the cotton back to its original, fluffy condition, as though it had been just picked from the cotton plant.

The opening is located in the upper back of the toy.  The cotton is stuffed into the toy, filling first the lower legs, then the body, then the arms, the head and finally the chest.  The opening is then sewn closed by hand.  A ribbon is tied around its neck and tied in an attractive bow.

Being a pin cushion there are usually 5 brass safety pins attached.  In this case the Gold foil tag and the felt cap are attached with two of the safety pins.  Besides the safety pins a small spool of thread is ually attached to the neck-ribbon as a further indication it is for buyers who sew.

The doll pin cushion are then ready to be shipped to the stores that were Mary Meyer customers for resale to women who were making their own cloths and needed a place to store their pins and needles.

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An Old Mary Meyer Musical Giraffe from the late 1950’s         

My name is Walter Meyer.  Mary Meyer was my Mother and I spent from 1955 to 2010 working in the Mary Meyer family business.  In high school I cut out toys and felt parts for stuffed toys and many other jobs at Mary Meyer. I also swept the floor.  I started working here full time in September 1955.  My jobs include most of the steps in manufacturing the stuffed animals Mary Meyer made, plus purchasing raw materials, designing, preparing company catalogs, and just about everything and anything that needed doing.

This is a Musical Giraffe that my daughter Linda found on the internet.  When I first saw it I honestly did not remember making it.  Thinking back to the late 1950’s, I am sure we did not make many.

            _{^{Right Side                           Left Side                         Musical Tag           Mary Meyer Tag}}    

 The discovery happened something like this.  In the spring of 2010 Linda emailed me a photo of an old giraffe she found on the internet.  She asked me if it was ours.  I looked at the photo and was not sure.  I did not remember the design, but it did have a Mary Meyer sewn in tag and an “I’m A Musical” ribbon that we used for many years.  Though I did not remember the design, I was sure we made it.  Everything about it was right and it was very similar to other Giraffes we made.

When I look at an old toy, I check the sewn in tag to see, who manufactured it.  On this Giraffe there was a Mary Meyer tag – White satin with Green ink.  In the early days White satin ribbon was standard and Green printing is the earliest color we used from about 1950 through 1970.  After 1970 the tags we used were Blue ink on White satin.

On the tag there were no state license numbers.  The State of Pennsylvania was the first state that required that we toy manufacturers had to be licensed to sell our product in the state of Pennsylvania.  We checked and that law went into effect in 1961, so this giraffe was made pre-1961 – let’s say some time in the late 1950’s.

The “I’m A Musical” tag which was glued onto the neck of the giraffe was the earliest tag design we used.  It was Pink satin ribbon with dark Blue ink.  Years later (don’t ask me how many years), we changed the type font to a more attractive one.  So this was the earliest version and fit with the 1950’s date.

When the Giraffe was made there was a neck ribbon with a bow, that was supposed to cover the end of the musical tag, where it was cemented onto the Giraffe.  As you can see it’s gone.  The ribbon is one of the first things that are removed from stuffed animals.  Paper or cardboard tags attached with a string are also removed quite early in a toys life.

The fabric was rayon plush, which fits the 1950’s.  We bought it from Baxter, Kelly & Faust, Inc. on “C” and Tioga Streets in Philadelphia, Pa.  The Baxters were a great family to work with.  They invited my Mother and Dad many times to accompany them to dinner and a Broadway play, when my parents were in New York City for a trade show.

I started working at Mary Meyer in the fall of 1955.  In the 1960’s my wife and I would be guests of Jerry Baxter and his wife, when we went to New York City for the Toy Fair in February or March each year.

Everything was right about the giraffe, except the musical mechanism.  The musical mechanism in this toy was not the wind-up variety that we normally used. It was a hand-crank version.  The standard musical mechanism in a stuffed toy in those days was made in Switzerland.  It had a key and a spring.  You wound up the spring and it powered the music box.  The music played until the tension in the spring was used up.  That was the standard mechanism and was sold by a company in New York City named Swisstone.  Harry Fischbein owned and ran the business.  They imported musical mechanism from Switzerland and resold them to stuffed toy manufacturers in the USA.  Mary Meyer bought direct from the Swiss musical manufacturers and also from Swisstone in New York City.

The mechanism in this giraffe did not have a key or a wind-up spring.  The crank that went to the mechanism turned the cylinder directly.  There was no spring that wound up and transferred the energy to the mechanism, which then played the tune.  The crank was attached directly to the rotating drum and pins and moved each tooth of the music mechanism.  When you started winding, the music played.  When you stopped winding the music stopped.

If you look at the photos of the Giraffe you can see the crank is below the Red felt tail.  When you turn the crank, the music plays.  This mechanism plays “Happy Birthday”, which was not a popular tune in the 1950’s or 1960’s.  The most popular tunes for music boxes were “Brahms Lullaby”, “Frere Jacques”, “Mary Had A Little Lamb” and “Doggie In the Window”.

The music box in the giraffe still works fine after 50 years.  I remember seeing this type of musical mechanism, but I do not remember using it in many of the stuffed toys that we made.  Obviously we did, because he’s a sample of one we made in the late 1950’s.  It appears we did use some of these mechanism, but we must have used very few, as no one remembers putting them into our toys.

Beverly is a 92 year old lady, who worked at Mary Meyer for almost 40 years.  She retired about 1985.  I visited her and showed her the Musical Giraffe.  She did not remember it.  Beverly was in the stuffed toy production and worked on most of the toys Mary Meyer made from 1946 to 1985.  She sewed the opening closed through which the toys were stuffed in the early days.  Later she cemented the eyes, noses, tongues and the musical tags onto the stuffed animals.  Beverly lives by herself, works at a local thrift shop on Fridays and drives her own car at the age of 92.  She is phenominal.  Her mind is very sharp and she has a great memory for the toys she worked on but, she did not remember this Musical Giraffe.  For that reason I do not believe me manufactured many of them.

That’s the story of the old Musical Giraffe with the hand-crank.

By Walter Meyer

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MARY MEYER DUTCH BOY DOLL

I have spent most of my life as part of Mary Meyer Stuffed Toys.  Besides the 50+ years I have worked here, the time when I was growing up, I was also involved in the Mary Meyer company.  The main reason was that Mary Meyer was my Mother and she and Dad (Hans Meyer) were totally involved in their business.  So were their son – me – Walter.

            This story started in New York City, where Mother was born.  Dad met her there and they were married in 1929.  I came along in 1931.  In 1933 they started Mary Meyer Manufacturing Co. in NYC.

            Mother designed the animal pin cushions and toys and she and her girls made the them.  Dad was the sales end of the business and he sold them.  Keep in mind at that time I am between 10 and 12 years old and stuffed toys were really of no interest to me, but they were part of my family’s life.  I was exposed to Mother and Dad’s conversations at dinner, where they constantly talked about business.

            Now let’s get to the Dutch Boy Doll.  In January 2010 my wife Elaine and I were vacationing in Vero Beach, Florida.  One Saturday I suggested we go to an Antique Show at the Vero Beach Fair Grounds near us in Florida.

            We went and walked around the show and saw a lot of antiques.  I was looking for old Mary Meyer toys and animal pin cushions that we may have made in the late 30’s and early 40’s.  In one booth I saw a doll lying on a lower shelf.  It was not displayed very well, but it caught me eye.  What I noticed first about the doll were the wooden shoes.  Now dolls wearing wooden shoes are not something you see often.  I was not looking for them, but when I saw them, something in my brain clicked and made me wonder if this might be a Mary Meyer creation.  If we had made this doll, I believe we did not make a large quantity of them. 

            When I asked to see the doll, the lady selling it said “You can have it for $30”.  It was marked $39.  The more I looked at it the more I thought, possibly Mother had made this toy.    
     

       In the 1930’s and 1940’s we did not sew name-tag into the toys we made, that might say Mary Meyer made it.  There was no tag on this toy, so it’s possible anyone may have made it.  Keep in mind I had listened to my parent’s conversation at home for many years talking about their business, so I did have a few memories of what they said and did.  I also hung around the factory and saw a lot of what was happening.

            Mother and Dad are in this story, plus a man named Anton Schumacher, who was a German and came over from the “Old Country”.  He was a carpenter and worked for a sugar refinery in NYC.  Mr. Schumacher worked weekends for my Dad and built tables for the factory and any other carpenter worked Dad needed.

            In the late 1930’s I can remember seeing dolls and especially a Dutch girl and boy dolls.  What I remember most about them were their wooden shoes.  That’s where Anton Schumacher came into the story.  Anton was a happy, hard working German, who smoked White Owl cigars.  Often I was sent on an errand to a local drug store to get cigars for Anton.  I was ten years old and I told the druggist they were for my Father and they sold them to me.

After we returned home from Florida to Vermont in March 2010, I checked the Dutch Boy doll carefully. The shoes were made of wood and I am sure I had seen those same wooden shoes almost 70 years before.  I felt they could be the same ones Anton Schumacher made.

            The doll’s face was made by Crescent Hill Novelty Co, of New York City.  We had purchased these same doll faces from them for many years.  I used Crescent Hill as a face supplier in the 1960’s and 70’s, when I was managing the Mary Meyer production for our plush dolls.  So the faces matched also.

The body of the doll was made of a cotton fabric called chintz, which Mother had used many times.  So that helped the connection. There was also a neck ribbon with a small brass safety pin fastening the neck ribbon to the doll.  Mother used those same small brass pins on her animal pin cushions.  That helps substantiate that Mother may have made this Dutch Boy doll.

            In April 2010 I found a photo selling sheet that Dad had made showing the toys Mary Meyer was offering in 1947.  The heading said Mary Meyer Mfg. Co., Townshend, Vermont.- Hygienic Stuffed Animals and Dolls.  The sheet showed 13 stuffed animals plus 3 dolls. 

            Looking at the dolls, I saw the doll – #800 – was exactly the same body pattern as the Dutch Boy doll.  Compare the arms, the way they were shaped, their size, the thumbs, the arm thickness and it’s proportion.  The #800 Doll of the sheet matched the pattern, size and shape of the Dutch Boy Doll.  Compare the arms in the two photos below.  They are identical and made with the same pattern.  The left one is from a 1947 Mary Meyer sales flier and the Dutch Boy was taken very recently.  After comparing the two bodies and arms, I knew then that Mother had made the Dutch Boy that I bought in Florida 70 years later.  I have designed and made enough stuffed toys in my life-time to know this was the same pattern.

                                                               
            The legs or body seem longer in the Dutch Boy.  That’s okay.  It’s a common practice in stuffed toy designing, to make use of old patterns when creating a new design.  If the body design is a good one, it’s very easy to lengthen the body and legs to make the new design taller.  I have done that many times when creating a new toy.

            To further check my theory, I looked in some bookkeeping ledgers from 1938 showing the materials that Mary Meyer purchased for manufacturing at that time.  I had them at home.  In the ledger, on Anton Schumacher’s page, there is an entry on March 12, 1938 in Dad’s handwriting – “2 Dutch do. and 2 Rabbits – $4.50” .  It appears Anton had bought a set of Dutch Girl and Boy dolls plus 2 Rabbits for $4.50.  It was March and Easter was coming.  Dad later voided the bill for $4.50.  I would guess he gave the toys to Anton Schumacher as he had made the wooden shoes.  Dad gave toys to his friends and carpenters and plumbers who did work for him in appreciation of their good work.

            The “do.” After the Dutch I believe is an abbreviation, as there was not enough space to write out all the letters “dolls”, he just wrote “do”.  

      Checking further on page 22 of the same ledger I found Crescent Hill’s account.  On March 8, 1938 we purchased something from them.  Now thinking about what we bought from them.  It could only be doll faces.  We did not buy any else that I know of at that time. Supplying faces was their business.  It is very possible we had those doll faces in stock and Mother used what she had in stock to make the Dutch Boy doll.

            I am 100% sure that Mother made the Dutch Boy doll I found 70 years later is Florida.  How it ended up in Florida, I have no idea, but I am sure Mary Meyer Mfg. Co. made the Dutch Boy doll I found at that antique show in Vero Beach, Florida in January 2010 and I am very happy to have him finally come home again.

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In April 2010 I received a call from Paul Lukas, a writer from New York City.  Paul had stumbled upon a file cabinet full of Report Cards from the the early 1920’s.  My Mother, Mary Meyer, was one of those students at the Manhattan Trade School For Girls  learning the dress-making profession.

The school had been established for you girls to teach them a marketable skill so they would not be forced to work in a sweat shop.  With their skills they could get a better paying job.  Paul Lukas send me copies of Mother’s report cards.  It showed she was energetic, did her assignments well and was a good all around student and worker.

It’s wonderful that Paul Lukas found those report cards and realized the family histories that came out of the education offered to help these  young women.  My Mother was a student there from 1918 to 1922 and learned the skills that allowed her to start a business, which is still alive and well today.

Mother met my Dad in the late 1920’s, they married and in 1933 started their company, Mary Meyer Manufacturing Co., which is still alive and  and growing today in Southern Vermont.

Mother and Dad managed the company and I joined the them in 1955. Mother’s four grandsons (my sons) joined in the 1980’s.  Mother was active in her company until the early 1980’s.  At the age of 78 she said, “I’ve done this long enough” and retired to less stressful jobs, like opening the mail and reporting it’s contents to her Grandson, Kevin, now the president of Mary Meyer.

All of this came from a small beginning at the Manhattan Trade School for Girls and it built the beginning of a family business and jobs for up to 1,000 people during the past 77 years.

The next time you pick up a stuffed toy, look at the label.  It just might say “Mary Meyer – Townshend, Vermont”.  The company has been around for a long time because a young woman learned her skills at the Manhattan Trade School for Women and started a business and a big, happy family and now they are one.

Last week the New York Times had a story about the Manhattan Trade School for Girls.  The link is http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/14/nyregion/14bigcity.html?_r=1

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As a young woman, Mary Lorang studied clothing design in New York City. When she was twenty-five, she married a salesman named Hans Meyer. Four years later in 1933 they decided to put their talents together. Mary and Hans began to design, manufacture, and sell tomato and animal pin cushions along with dolls. After several years they added stuffed toys.

While Mary was designing and overseeing a very small production staff, Hans was on the road selling. In the early 1940’s, they moved the company to the beautiful Green Mountains of Vermont. During those years Mary Meyer was expanding her assortment of stuffed animals well beyond the already popular teddy bear.

In the mid 1950’s Mary’s son Walter joined the company. Walter continues to be active in the company. Hans Meyer died in 1965.

In 1982 Walter’s son, Kevin, joined the company, eventually becoming president in 1986. Through the ensuing years, three of Kevin’s brothers would join the company in various capacities.

Mary was active in the management of her business until 1982, retiring at the age of 78. After her retirement, she continued to be involved with the company. Through her 80s and into her 90s, she spent many hours in the company factory store. She loved to visit with teddy bear collectors and sign their Mary Meyer collector bears. Mary Meyer died on January 19, 1999 at 94 years of age. Known as “Gram” to family, friends, townspeople, employees and colleagues worldwide, Mary brought a sense of gentleness and graciousness to the toy industry.

Fortunately, Mary’s influence lives on. You can see it in over 400 different stuffed toy designs we offer. Following Mary’s principles, we continually strive to design extraordinary products of outstanding quality, all the while keeping an eye on customer service and value.

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The teddy bear got its name from a hunting story that included US President Theodore Roosevelt, known as Teddy, and a Black Bear on a hunting expedition in Mississippi in the November 1902.

From that hunting trip the Washington Post newspaper showed a cartoon of a small Black bear cub and that was the birth of the Teddy Bear. 

A couple in Brooklyn, NY made a stuffed toy that resembled the newspaper cartoon and sold it in their candy store and furthered the teddy bears creation.  The toy bear looked cuter and sweeter and made a hit with their customers.

Looking back in history we find stuffed animals in ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations and wall paintings of that era.  Stuffed animals were used in medieval plays, such as the snake in the Garden of Eden and the Lion in the story of Daniel in the lion’s den.

During the industrial revolution, toys became a booming industry.  A stuffed toy was also homemade and stuffed with straw, cotton batting, rags and also beans – the birth of the bean bag toy.

Today the total number of companies producing stuffed toys worldwide exceeds hundreds and possibly thousands.

So how does this relate to Mary Meyer Stuffed Toys? 

My Mother was Mary Meyer and she grew up in New York City.  She attended “Manhattan Trade School for Girls” and learned professional sewing.  She learned the dressmaking and all the skills that go with it. 

After graduation she worked for a company named “Miss Carol” who made very expensive ladies dresses, which sold for $2,000 to $3,000.  She learned the business and in addition to being involved in the making of dresses, she also bought materials and did competitive shopping for “Miss Carol”.

Mary Meyer was a life-long sewer and her husband, Hans Meyer was a fabulous salesman.  Together they formed a winning team and decided that the products that they made would be something sewn.  In 1933 they started making animal pin cushions.

 What is an Animal Pin Cushion

In the 1930’s most women sewed their own dresses and also made their children’s clothes.  Only the more affluent people could afford to buy their clothes.  Because almost every woman sewed in the 1930’s, these women all needed a pin cushion to store their pins and needles.  You just did not leave them lying around, you stored them in a pin cushion.

The pin cushion design started out as a Red tomato and expanded from there.  Mary Meyer (my Mother) created other designs, specifically animals, such as a Scottie, Lamb, Cats and a whole zoo of different animals.  I continually search the internet and antique shops for old stuffed toys and pin cushions.  I know they are out there, because occasionally I stumble upon them.

In the late 1930’s and early 1940’s Mother and Dad sold those same pincushion designs and used “Oil Cloth” cover the toys.  If you are not sure what oil cloth is, you might remember your grandmother covered her kitchen table with oil cloth.  It was a cotton fabric covered with a plastic-like coating that made it washable.  You could take a wet cloth and wipe the fabric clean, whether it was a table cloth or a stuffed toy.  Mother and Dad made washable, oil cloth toys and animal pin cushions until 1946 and the end of World War 2.

The oil cloth toys and the pin cushions used exactly the same designs – dogs, cats, lambs, etc.- same size, same manufacturing methods, just different fabrics.  In the later 1940’s they then started to us plush fabric.  Plush is an imitation fur, made of Rayon in the 1940’s.  It was called Rayon plush and was a standard fabric used by the stuffed toy industry. 

The pin cushion business finally went the way of the “buggy whip”, because fewer and fewer women were sewing their own cloths.  Instead, they were now working in factories and offices and bought their clothes, making the need for an animal pin cushion a thing of the past.

That’s how Mary Meyer evolved into the stuffed toy business.

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