“More Toy Guns Than Dolls Will Probably Be Sold In United States By Christmas” in 1957

Yesterday’s post about the Johnny Seven One-Man Army toy gun isn’t the only bit of history we have glamorizing toy weapons. If we jump back to the fifties, we find this 1957 newspaper article in which Mattel’s Ruth Handler is singled out as saying that “the top toys of 1957 will be guns.” As you know, the world has changed a lot in the sixty years since this article was published, but even then, I find it unusual that there was a time when toymakers were this open about creating and selling realistic toy guns. No orange tips in 1957, kids!