Blogger unearths history of Tryon Toy Makers

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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The Daddy Types blogger has a neat post about the history of the Tryon Toy Makers, a company founded in Tryon during World War I:

While getting in touch with my North Carolina roots by poking around the special collections at UNC-Asheville, I stumbled across the archives of the Tryon Toy Makers, a company founded in Tryon, NC during WWI. I had no idea my roots included bringing hillbilly children into town to carve awesome wooden toys for Yankee socialites.

The company was run by two women who had founded Biltmore Industries, a manufacturing and textile operation, for George Vanderbilt. Tryon Toys and Biltmore both were part of an economic development program Vanderbilt and his wife envisioned for the isolated mountain people of North Carolina. Tryon’s workers were between the ages of 11 and 15 years old.

With the war on, there were no German toys available in the US; so Tryon made carved wood toys based on European designs provided by the vacationing socialites of Asheville. Though as the toy cabin below illustrates, they also produced their own designs.

Here’sa link to UNCA’s archives that has references to Tryon Toy Makers.