People like to characterize present-day parents as helicopters, always hovering over their children, children who have every moment of their day scheduled and supervised. Those same people think of Boomer Babies as free-range kids, who were kicked out of the house in the morning, played unsupervised all day, drank from the hose, and finally came in with skinned knees at dark. Perhaps they are not far from the truth. I’ve just been looking at popular toys of the 1950s and 1960s, the era when Santa was still coming to my house, and frankly, as a pediatrician, I’m amazed! I’m not talking about bicycles without helmets, or metal roller skates that came off your shoes, or pogo sticks that would break your ankle. I’m not even talking about Ralphie’s Red Ryder BB gun (You’ll shoot your eye out!”). I’m talking about seriously crazy toys.

Let’s start with the most amazing one of all, the Gilbert U-238 Nuclear Physics Atomic Energy Lab. This science set, sold during the 1950s, a period in America when everyone was fascinated with science, the cold war, and bomb shelters, was expensive at $49.50 (over $500.00 in today’s dollars). Invented by Alfred Gilbert, the man who created the Erector Set, it was one of a fleet of educational toys of the era. The set included four samples of uranium-bearing ores (autunite, torbernite, uraninite, and carnotite), as well as a Geiger-Mueller radiation counter, a cloud chamber, and other tools. There was also a comic book, “Learn How Dagwood Split the Atom,” written in conjunction with General Groves, the director of the Manhattan Project! The catalog with the kit exhorted kids to “See the paths of electrons and alpha particles…..Play hide and seek with the gamma ray source…” Parents must have been reassured by the certificate stating, “All radioactive materials….have been certified as completely safe by Oak-Ridge Laboratories, part of the Atomic Energy Commission.” Not so reassuring must have been the instructions cautioning users not to break the seals on the ore sample jars, or “… you would run the risk of having radioactive ore spread out in your laboratory. This will raise the level of the background count….” Sadly, the atomic energy kit was never very popular, likely because of its high price, and only 5,000 kits were sold. Gilbert always felt it was not popular because it was too advanced for his company’s younger target audience. No one at the time was worried about safety.

Paling in comparison are the many chemistry sets popular in the 1950 and 1960s. Post WWII, the space race, atomic power, the transistor all focused Americans on science. Chemistry sets, popular throughout the 20^th Century, hit their peak in the 1950s. Gilbert’s company made one, as did the popular Chemcraft company. Remember the red metal chemistry set Santa brought you or your brother? Probably a Chemcraft, which was guaranteed to “prepare young America for world leadership.” Remember the bottled chemicals: iodine, potassium permanganate, zinc powder, sodium ferrocyanide, sulfur, tannic acid, the red and blue litmus paper, test tubes, pipettes, and filter paper. Some sets even included a little blowtorch (why not?)! Some chemicals were poisonous, some were caustic, some were explosive. Magic tricks, secret writing, invisible ink, food testing, and making blueprints; anything was possible with a chemistry set! And you could join the Chemcraft Science Cub, get their magazine and catalogue, and buy more chemicals! You could even buy an entire laboratory work bench. Science was so popular. It was the era of Disney’s hit movies the Absent-Minded Professor, Flubber and Son of Flubber. There are many Nobel Prize winners who credit their chemistry set for inspiring their career. The increasing safety consciousness of the 1960-70s, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and Agent Orange all changed attitudes about chemistry, and these sets fell out of favor by the 1980’s. Any chemistry sets you buy now are sad imitations of the glorious kits of the 1950s.

Often listed as number one on the terrible toy list are Lawn Darts (Jarts), those short, sharp, metal-tipped weighted arrows, meant to be thrown up in the air in the yard to land on a target in the grass. What could go wrong with children running around in the yard throwing sharp metal projectiles? They were fun and popular, but reports of terrible injuries flooded in to Consumers Union and the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. There were over six thousand emergency room visits for eye injuries, darts penetrating skulls, and at least three deaths. The sale of Lawn Darts was banned in the 1980s and it is illegal to resell used ones.
Whew!

Then there’s the whole category of hot toys. I had a Vac-U-Form, with an exposed metal plate hot enough to melt plastic, and a hand vacuum pump to form the melted plastic over shapes to make toy boats, cars, and bugs. I didn’t burn myself, but I sure did drop hot plastic on the carpet. Let’s not even think about children inhaling toxic plastic fumes. My brother had a wood-burning kit, with the super-hot handheld metal wood burner. Certainly, that kit did not include safety gloves, or a mask or an automatic-off for the heated tool (“I’ll be right back in a minute, let me just set this down for a sec….”). My sister had an Easy-Bake Oven with the light bulb hot enough to burn your finger to smithereens. There are many reports of children burning fingers and getting fingers trapped in the oven. At least one child had to have a fingertip amputated. There have been multiple lawsuits against Hasbro concerning this oven. It is still on the market, in a much-modified form. It is a paragon of safety compared to its competitor, the Empire Little Lady Stove, which could get up to 600 degrees! Most real ovens won’t even get that hot.

Why am I reminded of Saturday Night Live’s famous skit, Consumer Probe, featuring the Bag O’ Glass?!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veMiNQifZcM

I’m a pediatrician and now that I have survived a Boomer childhood, I take toy safety seriously. I’m glad we have the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) which establishes and enforces safety regulations for toys, oversees recalls of unsafe toys and investigates reports of toy-related injuries. There’s also The Toy Association, which offers resources for parents at www.PlaySafe.org. Thank heavens things are a little safer now.