History of LEGO
This article is about Lego's history.
==Beginings==
The Lego Group had humble beginnings in the workshop of Ole Kirk Christiansen, a carpenter from Billund, Denmark. The word lego is an abbreviation for two Danish words leg and godt meaning play well. In 1916, Christiansen purchased a woodworking shop in Billund which had been in business since 1895. He earned his living by constructing houses and furniture for farmers in the region, with the help of a small staff of apprentices. His workshop burned down in 1924 when a fire, lit by two of his young sons, ignited some wood shavings. Undaunted, Ole Kirk took the disaster as an opportunity to construct a larger workshop, and worked towards expanding his business even further; however, the Great Depression would soon have an impact on his livelihood. In finding ways to minimize production costs, Ole Kirk began producing miniature versions of his products as design aids. It was these miniature stepladders and ironing boards that inspired him to begin producing toys.
(Note: According to a Lego employee in Denmark, Ole Kirk's move to toy production was actually inspired by the government rather than self-motivated. Various literature appears to be to the contrary, implying that Ole Kirk actively decided to move on to toy manufacture. However, more personal recollections and retellings suggest that when Ole Kirk's carpentry shop was going out of business in 1932, his local social worker suggested or otherwise encouraged him to make toys.)
In 1932, Ole Kirk's shop started making wooden pull toys, piggy banks, cars and trucks. He enjoyed a modest amount of success, but families were poor and often unable to afford such toys. Farmers in the area sometimes traded food in exchange for his toys; Ole Kirk found he had to continue producing practical furniture in addition to toys in order to stay in business. In the mid-1930s, the yo-yo toy fad gave him a brief period of activity, until it suddenly collapsed. Once again, Ole Kirk turned disadvantage to his favor, turning the disused yo-yo parts into wheels for a toy truck. His son Godfred began working for him, taking an active role in the company.
It was in 1934 that the company name Lego was coined. Ole Kirk held a contest amongst his staff to see who could come up with the best name for the company, offering a bottle of homemade wine as a prize. Christiansen was considering two names himself, "Legio" (with the implication of a "Legion of toys") and "Lego", a self-made contraction from the Danish phrase leg godt, meaning "play well." Later the Lego Group discovered that "Lego" can be loosely interpreted as "I put together" or "I assemble" in Latin .
When plastic came into widespread use, Ole Kirk kept with the times and began producing plastic toys. One of the first modular toys to be produced was a truck that could be taken apart and re-assembled. In 1947, Ole Kirk and Godtfred obtained samples of interlocking plastic bricks produced by the company Kiddicraft. These "Kiddicraft Self-Locking Building Bricks" were designed and patented by Mr. Hilary Harry Fisher Page, a British citizen. In 1949 the Lego Group began producing similar bricks, calling them "Automatic Binding Bricks." Lego bricks, manufactured from cellulose acetate, were developed in the spirit of traditional wooden blocks that could be stacked upon one another; however, these plastic bricks could be "locked" together. They had several round "studs" on top, and a hollow rectangular bottom. They would stick together, but not so tightly that they could not be pulled apart. In 1953, the bricks were given a new name: Lego Mursten, or "Lego Bricks."
The use of plastic for toy manufacture was not highly regarded by retailers and consumers of the time. Many of the Lego Group's shipments were returned, following poor sales; it was thought that plastic toys could never replace wooden ones. Despite such criticism, however, the Kirk Christiansens persevered. By 1954, Godtfred had become the junior managing director of the Lego Group. It was his conversation with an overseas buyer that struck the idea of a toy "system." Godtfred saw the immense potential in Lego bricks to become a system for creative play, but the bricks still had some problems from a technical standpoint: their "locking" ability was limited, and they were not very versatile. It was not until 1958 that the modern-day brick design was developed. The bricks were improved with hollow tubes in the underside of the brick. This added support in the base, enabling much better locking ability and improved versatility. That same year, Ole Kirk Christiansen died, and Godtfred inherited leadership of the company.
==Growth==
The Lego Group matured a great deal over the next up and coming years. In 1959, the Futura division was founded within the company. Its tiny staff was responsible for generating ideas for new sets. Another warehouse fire struck the Lego Group in 1960, consuming most of the company's inventory of wooden toys; fortunately, the Lego brick line was strong enough by then that the company decided to abandon production of wooden toys. By the end of the year, the staff of the Lego Group had come to be over 450 total people.danthemanrox danthemanrox
1961 and 1962 saw the introduction of the first Lego wheels, an addition that expanded the potential for building cars, trucks, buses and other vehicles from Lego bricks. Also during this time, the Lego Group introduced toys specifically targeted towards the pre-school market, and made an arrangement allowing Samsonite to begin producing and selling Lego products in Canada, an arrangement that would continue until 1988. There were more than 50 sets of bricks in the Lego System of Play by this time.
In 1963, the material used to create Lego bricks, cellulose acetate, was dropped in favor of more stable acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS plastic), which is still used today. ABS is non-toxic, is less prone to discoloration and warping, and is also more resistant to heat, acids, salt, and other chemicals than cellulose acetate. Lego bricks manufactured from ABS plastic in 1963 still hold most of their shape and color more than 40 years later, and still neatly interlock with the most recently manufactured Lego bricks.[citation needed]
1964 was the first time that instruction manuals were included in Lego sets.
One of the Lego Group's most successful series, the Lego train system, was first released in 1966. The original train sets included a 4.5-volt motor and rails; two years later, a 12-volt motor was introduced.
On June 7, 1968, the first Legoland Park was opened in Billund. This theme park featured elaborate models of miniature towns built entirely from Lego bricks. The three acre (12,000 m²) park attracted 625,000 visitors in its first year alone. During the next 20 years, the park grew to more than eight times its original size, and eventually averaged close to a million paying visitors per year. More than eighteen million Lego sets were sold in 1968.
In 1969, the Duplo system went on sale. This was a newly developed system, targeted towards younger children; Duplo bricks are much larger than Lego bricks, making them safer for very young children, but the two systems are compatible: Lego bricks can be fitted neatly onto Duplo bricks, making the transition to the Lego system easily made as children outgrow their Duplo bricks. The prefix "du" in Duplo refers to the number 2, of which, a duplo brick is exactly twice the dimension of a LEGO building brick (2x height by 2x width by 2x depth = 8x the volume of a brick)XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
dantheman has tagged this page
Expansion
By 1970, the Lego Group had a staff of more than 900. The coming decades marked considerable expansion into new frontiers of toy making and marketing. Lego began to target the female market with the introduction of furniture pieces and dollhouses in 1971. The Lego universe expanded its transportation possibilities with the addition of boat and ship sets, with hull pieces that actually floated, in 1972.
During this same period, Godtfred Kirk Christiansen's son, Kjeld Kirk Christiansen, joined the managerial staff of the company, after earning business degrees in Switzerland and Denmark. One of Kjeld's first achievements with the company was the foundation of manufacturing facilities, as well as a research and development department that would be responsible for keeping the company's manufacturing methods up to date. Human figures with posable arms made an appearance in 1974 in "Lego family" sets, which went on to become the biggest sellers at the time; in the same year, an early version of the "minifigure" miniature Lego person was introduced, but it was not posable and had no face printed on its head. A Lego production plant was opened in Enfield, Connecticut in the United States.
"Expert Series" sets were first introduced in 1975, geared towards older, more experienced Lego builders. This line soon developed into the "Expert Builder" sets, released in 1977. These technical sets featured moving parts such as gears, differentials, cogs, levers, axles and universal joints, and permitted the construction of realistic models such as automobiles, with functional rack and pinion steering and lifelike engine movements. Finally, the Lego world came together in 1978 with the addition of the Lego "minifigure". These small Lego people have posable arms and legs, and a friendly smile. The figure was used in many varieties of Lego sets, allowing consumers to construct elaborate towns with buildings, roads, vehicles, trains, and boats, at the same scale, and populated with the smiling minifigure Lego citizens.
Another significant expansion to the Lego line occurred in 1979, with the creation of Lego Space sets. Astronaut minifigures, rockets, lunar rovers and spaceships populated this successful series. The Scala series debuted in this year as well, featuring jewelry elements marketed towards young girls. Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen became the president of Lego in this year; another decade concluded with Lego toys still going strong.
Lego bricks had always had a constructive potential that was seen by some educators as being an invaluable asset in helping children to develop creativity and problem-solving abilities. Since the 1960s, teachers had been using Lego bricks in the classroom for a variety of reasons. In 1980, the Lego Group established the Educational Products Department (eventually renamed Lego Dacta, in 1989), specifically to expand the educational possibilities of their toys. A packing and assembly factory opened in Switzerland, followed by another in Jutland, Denmark that manufactured Lego tires.
The second generation of Lego trains appeared in 1981. As before these were available in either 4.5 V (battery powered) or 12 V (mains powered), but a much wider variety of accessories were available, including working lights, remote-controlled points and signals, and decouplers.
