Soon millions will make Medicare coverage decisions for next year, and UnitedHealthcare can help you feel confident about your choices. For those eligible, Medicare Annual Enrollment runs from October 15th through December 7th.
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Vanguard Marketing Corporation distributor. This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories. And we tell stories about everything here on this show, including your stories.
Send them to OurAmericanStories.com. They're some of our favorites. And now, on to The History Guy. His videos are watched by hundreds of thousands of people of all ages on YouTube. The History Guy is also heard here at Our American Stories. The life of the youngest ever winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Rudyard Kipling, was filled with tragedy. He survived a difficult childhood to go on to become one of the most celebrated authors of his day, penning such classics as The Jungle Book and Just So Stories. Here's The History Guy with the story of Rudyard Kipling.
Now a name just Sonny Cline, what I used to spend my time sovereign of Her Majesty the Queen. Of all the black-faced crew, the finest man I knew was regimental beastie, Gunga Din. Was Din, Din, Din, you limpin' lump of brick dust, Gunga Din.
High slippery hithero, water bring it to parry low, you squishy-nosed old idol, Gunga Din. Written in 1890, the poem Gunga Din was one of the most famous poems in the world in its time. Chronicles the life of a British soldier in India and offers an unlikely hero in the person of Gunga Din, the regimental water bearer. Who represents an idea, perhaps surprising to the soldier-narrator, that a person's worth is not defined by their race.
The poem has inspired films and songs and its famous last line, you're a better man than I am, Gunga Din, is an oft quoted bit of praise. But the author of the poem, the youngest person ever to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature, lived a tragic life. Rudyard Kipling, the author of such beloved classics as The Jungle Book and Captain's Courageous, suffered an abusive and difficult childhood. Went on to become one of the most famous authors of his time, but lived a life of tragedy.
The father of three, only one of his children would survive him. Rudyard Kipling was born to Lockwood Kipling, who was the head of an art school, and his wife Alice in Bombay, India on December 30th, 1865. They entrusted the early care of their son to an Indian nurse who carried the young Kipling with her during her daily duties to the bazaar. He was with her so much that Kipling's first language, and the one that he said he spoke in his dreams, was Hindi. But the nurse always reminded Kipling to speak only English to his parents so that they didn't necessarily know the extent of his fluency. Kipling's parents were concerned about the health of their amiable son.
He was nicknamed the little friend of the world because of his friendly attitude. And their second child, a daughter named Alice, whom everyone called Trix, who was born a few years later. Typhoid, cholera and other epidemics were common, partially because the causes of the disease were unknown, and the Kiplings believed their children would be safer from potential illness back in England. They found a boarding house in the south of England that seemed like the perfect place.
But they apparently didn't check all the appropriate references, and it was an unfortunate decision for Rudyard and Trix. The family that ran the boarding house, called the Holloways, told the children that their parents had left them behind in England because they had been bad. There never seemed to be enough to eat. Kipling recalled the lady of the house quizzing him about his daily activities and then picking apart his every answer in an effort to catch him in a lie. The Holloway's son cruelly beat the five-year-old Kipling with his fists. If the children cried after receiving a letter from their parents, they were locked in the basement for an entire day.
The word help was carved into the house's walls by one of the children kept by the Holloways. It was bleak. Kipling forever after called the place the House of Desolation. Later in life, Kipling wrote a semi-autobiographical novel entitled Baa Baa Black Sheep that detailed the lives of a six- and three-year-old who were left in the care of an abusive family in the south of England. Kipling's readers didn't know that he had modeled the story after his own life. For when young lips have drunk deep of the bitter waters of hate, suspicion, and despair, all the love in the world will not wholly take away that knowledge, though it may turn darkened eyes for a while to the light and teach faith where no faith was. Baa Baa Black Sheep, 1889. After Rudyard's mother came to take her children home six years later, she was putting Kipling to bed and went to give him a kiss goodnight.
He automatically threw up his hands as if to ward off an attack. It was then that she realized how awful the boarding house life had been to her children. The emotional scars ran deep.
Trix would struggle with what might be now labeled as bipolar disorder for her entire life. Rudyard, on the other hand, had intermittent periods of what he called depression and, according to some historians, an inability to form a close relationship with his wife. Kipling said he dealt with his variable moods by working long hours, sometimes as much as 16 hours in a day. He would later write to a friend, my head is all queer and I'm going to have to have it mended someday, but that someday never seemed to come. Kipling received his formal education at United Services College in Devon. It was another boarding school and one at which he didn't necessarily thrive.
He recalled being terrified as his fellow students hung him by his ankles out of the window on the fifth floor of a dormitory. Never particularly athletic, the dreamy and bookish Kipling was described as an indifferent student. Yet there be certain times in a young man's life when, through great sorrow or sin, all the boy in him is burnt and seared away so that he passes it one step to the more sorrowful state of manhood. The dream of Duncan Perrinus, 1884. But there were echoes of Kipling's earlier amiable attitude towards the world.
One of his classmates remembered him as a capering, pudgy little fellow, as precocious as ever could be. When he finished his time at United Services College, Kipling took a job at a newspaper near his parents in Lahore, India, which is now in Pakistan. Kipling began publishing his poetry, which was incredibly well-received by the public almost from the beginning of his career. He formed a close relationship with an American publicist in London named Walcott Ballester. And when Ballester unexpectedly died, Kipling married the deceased man's sister, Carrie, in January 1892.
The rushed wedding was small, with only four people in attendance, because London had virtually come to a standstill. There was a crippling influenza epidemic sweeping the city. Kipling described the atmosphere in his biography as, it was in the thick of an influenza epidemic when the undertakers had run out of black horses and the dead had to be content with brown ones. And you're listening to the History Guy tell the story of the youngest winner in the history of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Rudyard Kipling, and what a childhood he suffered at the hands of, my goodness, monsters. The House of Desolation, the story of the boarding house he grew up in. An indifferent student, you hear that a lot about really talented folks.
They're indifferent students, because they just haven't been tapped for their potential and their talent. We capture that often on The Stories We Tell Here, when we continue more of the remarkable life of poet and writer Rudyard Kipling, here on Our American Stories. is fast becoming a favorite option for supporters. Go to OurAmericanStories.com now and go to the donate button and help us keep the great American stories coming.
That's OurAmericanStories.com. Doing household chores can already be time consuming and tedious, and there's nothing more daunting than facing piles and piles of laundry that need to be done. I mean, that can be overwhelming for anyone. So, if you want to get those larger laundry loads done right and get back to your life, try all free clear mega packs. All free clear mega packs are bigger packs with two times the cleaning ingredients, compared to a regular pack so that you can tackle any laundry load without the worry. All free clear mega packs are also 100% free of perfumes and dyes and they're gentle on skin, which is great for any family's sensitive skin needs, which my family, we definitely have sensitive skin. So, the next time the whole family gets home from long vacation or you get the kids back from summer camp or whatever the situation is that's caused this big pile of dirty clothes, just know that all free clear mega packs, they have your back.
Purchase all free clear mega packs today and conquer any laundry load for all fabric types. Hey, you guys. This is Tori and Jennie with the 90210MG podcast. We have such a special episode brought to you by NerdTech ODT. We recorded it at iHeartRadio's 10th poll event, Wango Tango. Did you know that NerdTech ODT Remedipant 75 milligrams can help migraine sufferers still attend such an exciting event like Wango Tango? It's true. I had one that night and I took my NerdTech ODT and I was present and had an amazing time. Here's a little glimpse of our conversation with some of our closest friends. This episode was brought to you by NerdTech ODT Remedipant 75 milligrams.
Life with migraine attacks can mean missing out on big moments with friends and family, but thankfully NerdTech ODT Remedipant 75 milligrams is the only medication that is proven to treat a migraine attack and prevent episodic migraines in adults. So, lively events like Wango Tango don't have to be missed. Soon millions will make Medicare coverage decisions for next year, and UnitedHealthcare can help you feel confident about your choices. For those eligible, Medicare annual enrollment runs from October 15th through December 7th.
If you're working past age 65, you might be able to delay Medicare enrollment depending on your employer coverage. It can seem confusing, but it doesn't have to be. Visit UHCMedicareHealthPlans.com to learn more. UnitedHealthcare, helping people live healthier lives. And we continue with our American stories and the story of Rudyard Kipling.
Let's return to the History Guy. The couple honeymooned in the United States for a time and went on to Japan, where they received news that their bank had collapsed and taken much of their fortune with it. They returned to the States, Carrie's home country, purchased a home near her family in Brattleboro, Vermont. Carrie Kipling discovered she was pregnant and gave birth to the couple's first child, Josephine, on December 29th, 1892. In his biography, Kipling wrote that his daughter was born in three foot of snow on the night of 29 December, 1892, her mother's birthday being the 31st and mine the 30th on the same month. We congratulated her on her sense of the fitness of things. Kipling described this period of his life as the happiest and most productive of his career.
He loved living in the countryside of Vermont, away from the noisy cities or temptations like alcohol or opium. He wrote such classics as The Jungle Book, Captain's Courageous, both of which would later be made into films, and other books filled with short stories and poetry. Now this is the law of the jungle, as old and as true as the sky, and the wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the wolf that shall break it must die.
As the creeper that girdles the tree trunk, the law runneth forward and back, for the strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack. The Second Jungle Book, 1895. In 1896, Carrie gave birth to the couple's second child, a daughter named Elsie, and a son quickly followed in 1897, whom they named John. Kipling began telling his eldest daughter, Josephine, whom he called Effie, versions of his now beloved Just So stories for little children, every night before bed. He said, in the evening there were stories meant to put Effie to sleep, and you were not allowed to alter those by one single little word, that would be told Just So, or Effie would wake up and put back the missing sentence. So at last they came to be like charms, all three of them, the whale tale, the camel tale, and the rhinoceros tale. The Just So stories are imaginative stories about how animals begin to look and act the way they do in nature. The titles detail each story, there's how the whale got his throat, and how the camel got his hump. The enduring popularity of these stories speaks to the love and care with which Kipling wrote them for his children. I keep six honest serving men, they taught me all I knew.
Their names are what, and where, and when, and how, and why, and who. The Elephant's Child, 1902. The Kipling's idyllic existence in the United States ended when Kipling had a public run-in with Kerry's brother, Beatty Ballester. Ballester struggled with addiction to alcohol and money troubles. After publicly threatening to blow off Kipling's head, Ballester was arrested and a trial followed, which drew quite a lot of attention from the press because of Kipling's popularity as an author. As for his part, Kipling seemed to mourn the loss of his privacy, eventually moved his family back to England in an effort to reclaim it.
We're all islands, shouting lies to each other across seas of misunderstanding. The Light That Failed, 1891. Unfortunately, he suffered one of the largest losses of his life. The Kipling's eldest daughter, Josephine, age six, succumbed to pneumonia on March 6th, 1899. Kipling had been ill at the same time, and at first the family feared that they would lose them both. However, Kipling survived to discover that his daughter had not.
The world is very lovely, and it is very horrible, and it doesn't care about your life, or mine, or anything else. The Light That Failed, 1891. When the Just So Stories for Children was first published in 1902, Kipling illustrated the stories himself. The timing of the publication, so soon after the loss of Josephine, was particularly poignant. The loss forever after changed the author according to those close to him. The man who had once been described as a friend of the world smiled and laughed a little less often. Kipling's sister, Trix, said he became a sadder and a harder man. Kipling received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907 and remains the youngest person ever to have obtained the honor.
But his star seemed already to be fading. He espoused imperialistic political ideas and encouraged countries to pursue imperialistic policies. Kipling wrote the poem, The White Man's Burden, in an effort to encourage the United States to take a more active role in the Philippines. Take up the white man's burden, send forth the best you breed. Go bind your sons to exile, to serve your captive's need.
The White Man's Burden, 1899. He was also in support of the Great War, World War I, and encouraged his son John to serve in the conflict. At first John failed a medical examination to join the Royal Navy because of his weak eyesight.
He attempted to list two more times, but was rejected both times. And then using his father's connections, Kipling joined the Irish Guards to part in the Bloody Battle of Loos, the largest British assault of 1915. John Kipling, age 18, was assumed to have been blown apart by shells and no piece of his corpse was ever recovered for his family to mourn over. In 2015 the Commonwealth Grave Commission announced it had located the grave of John Kipling, whose remains had been buried in a French cemetery. If any question why we died, tell them.
Because our fathers lied. Epitests of War, 1918. This second last hit Kipling and his wife incredibly hard.
Kipling said he read the novels of Jane Austen to his wife and remaining daughter over and over again in an effort to shake the grief he felt at John's death. He also joined the group that would later become the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in honor of his lost son. Kipling suggested some of the biblical verses the Commission put on the stones of the war dead. He also wrote a regimental history of the Irish Guards which was published in 1923. It has been considered by some to be one of the best examples of a regimental history ever pinned. And there were too many, almost children of whom no record remains, that came out of Worley with the constant renewed drafts, lived the span of a Second Lieutenant's life, and were spent.
The Irish Guards in the Great War, 1923. While mourning his lost children, Kipling's health began a steady decline. Kipling suffered from duodenal ulcers, which it is believed eventually killed him at age 70.
The writer's ashes are interred at Westminster Abbey's Poet's Corner, and lives forever in the remains of Thomas Hardy and Charles Dickens. Kipling's only surviving child, Elsie, married George Bambridge, a diplomat, in 1924. She never had any children, so Kipling's bloodline ended and she died on April 24th, 1976. Like some celebrities today, Kipling's death was reported ahead of its time. Reading about it in a magazine, he wrote to the magazine, I've just read that I died.
Don't forget to delete me from your list of subscribers. Many of his political viewpoints, notably about imperialism, no longer held sway in the international world as he grew older, and he did receive much criticism for that. George Orwell described him as a jingo imperialist who was morally insensitive and a gutter patriot. His literary career had a meteoric rise but then seemed to stagnate, and he often spoke to friends about the foibles of early fame. Like his idyllic views of empire, in many ways Roger Kipling seemed to become history even before his days had passed, especially in the way that the loss of his children affected him. But what is left of Roger Kipling when everything else is turned to dust are his writings. Like perhaps his most famous poem, If, penned in 1895, which seems to represent his tragic life but exhorts us all to be the best that we can be, even in the face of terrible loss. If you can make one heap of all your winnings, risk it on one turn of pitch and toss, lose, start again at your beginnings, never say one word about your loss. If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew to serve your term long after they are gone, and so hold on when there is nothing in you except the will that tells them all hold on. If you can talk to crowds and keep your virtue, walk with kings, nor lose the common touch. If neither foe nor loving friend can hurt you, if all men matter to you, but none too much. If you can fill the everlasting minute with sixty seconds of distance run, then yours is the earth and everything that's in it.
And what's more, you'll be a man, my son. There include, as was indicated, not just Dickens and Chaucer and Tennyson, but in the end Kipling too, joining this august breed. And in addition, there are memorials for R. Jane Austen and Blake, the poet, and Auden and Lewis Carroll and C.S.
Lewis and T.S. Eliot and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and the list goes on and on. There was something special about the British talent, the literature, poetry, and all else. It may be one of the great special gifts that the British gave us.
It was a shared and common language, not just the laws, but the common language. The story of Rudyard Kipling, a story of loss and tragedy and beauty here on Our American Stories. Doing household chores can already be time consuming and tedious, and there's nothing more daunting than facing piles and piles of laundry that need to be done. I mean, that can be overwhelming for anyone. So if you want to get those larger laundry loads done right and get back to your life, try all free clear mega packs. All free clear mega packs are bigger packs with two times the cleaning ingredients compared to a regular pack so that you can tackle any laundry load without the worry. All free clear mega packs are also 100 percent free of perfumes and dyes and they're gentle on skin, which is great for any family's sensitive skin needs.
My family, we definitely have sensitive skin. So the next time the whole family gets home from long vacation or you get the kids back from summer camp or whatever the situation is that's caused this big pile of dirty clothes, just know that all free clear mega packs, they have your back. Purchase all free clear mega packs today and conquer any laundry load for all fabric types. Hey, you guys, this is Tori and Jenny with the 90210MG podcast. We have such a special episode brought to you by Nerd Tech ODT. We recorded it at I Heart Radio's 10th poll event, Wango Tango. Did you know that Nerd Tech ODT Remedapants 75 milligrams can help migraine sufferers still attend such an exciting event like Wango Tango?
It's true. I had one that night and I took my nerd tech ODT and I was present and had an amazing time. Here's a little glimpse of our conversation with some of our closest friends. This episode was brought to you by Nerd Tech ODT Remedapants 75 milligrams. Life with migraine attacks can mean missing out on big moments with friends and family.
But thankfully, Nerd Tech ODT Remedapants 75 milligrams is the only medication that is proven to treat a migraine attack and prevent episodic migraines in adults. So lively events like Wango Tango don't have to be missed. Soon millions will make Medicare coverage decisions for next year, and UnitedHealthcare can help you feel confident about your choices. For those eligible, Medicare annual enrollment runs from October 15th through December 7th.
If you're working past age 65, you might be able to delay Medicare enrollment depending on your employer coverage. It can seem confusing, but it doesn't have to be. Visit UHCmedicarehealthplans.com to learn more.
UnitedHealthcare, helping people live healthier lives. And we return to our American stories. And up next, a story from Pete Kors on Adolph Kors.
Take it away, Pete. Well, so Adolph was born somewhere in the 1840s in a little place called Barmen on Wuppertal in Germany. And kind of an interesting story, people say the C-O-O-R-S name is kind of unusual for a German name. His birth certificate, he was signed in as Kors, K-O-R-S, which is very German.
And his father actually signed K-O-H-R-S. And by the time his sister was born about 8 or 10 years later, there was a Dutch magistrate who brought the double O from their language and it became C-O-O-R-S. His father was a flour miller and died when he was 10. He had been a princess three times in order to survive. Once as a flour miller with his father's trade. Once as a printer book finder. And those are three years in dentureships, which as I understand, in those days that meant you got room and board and that's about it.
And then the third one in brewing. We don't know the details of how or why he decided to leave Germany. He was always very proud of his German heritage. But he stowed away on a ship, landed in Baltimore. Had no papers, had no money, was able to work off his passage. As soon as he did, he started working his way across the country. I guess it's a typical great American story of coming to a land of opportunity and freedom but with no safety nets.
You came here, you were on your own. As so many pioneers did after this country became free from the monarchical rule of England. And he worked on the Erie Barge Canal as we understand it. He worked at a brewery in Naperville, Illinois. The Stenger Brewery, became general manager of the brewery there.
Left, came further west. Ended up in Denver. Started a business importing cask wine from California and taking it by pack horse up to the mining towns between Idaho Springs, Georgetown, Central City, Blackhawk. And selling them and that's how he made a living. I guess some of his German friends in Denver said, well you know how to brew beer.
We could use a good brewery. Joined up with a financial partner. I think he invested about $10,000 in 11 acres in Golden, Colorado where he had found a source of spring water.
The brewery was incorporated in 1873, three years before Colorado statehood. His partner lasted about eight years and decided the beer business wasn't going anywhere. And Adolph had turned into a sole proprietorship and he really had no formal education. But he had a practical education and I think that was probably true for most immigrants at that time. They came with their skills, with their ability to do hard labor. And it wasn't easy, I'm sure it wasn't easy. And as I look at some of the pictures that we have in the archives of the brewery workers sitting around the tanks and the kegs, it's pretty obvious that they were a pretty rough crew.
You know, he struggled, but the business was growing. In those days there were over 20 breweries in Colorado. Most of the mining towns had their own breweries. We would equate to craft breweries today, boutique breweries. If you hike throughout Colorado and pay attention, a lot of these old abandoned mining towns and mining areas, you'll find hops growing.
Hops growing wild. And he literally started by, you know, hauling beer by back horse. And then he began to buy properties. And pre-prohibition, he sold beer by having, like craft breweries do today, by having saloons and bars. We have a listing actually 19, I think the first year of taxes were 1915.
And he did a full accounting of all his properties in Denver and in southern Colorado and around the region. Prohibition changed all that, and brewers could no longer own retail liquor saloons and bars. Another interesting story about Adolph, he needed to double the capacity of his brewery because they were doing quite well and growing.
And I believe it was 1884, I can't remember for sure the date. He had just completed the new facilities. Flood came down Clear Creek and wiped out his new brewery. And he had borrowed money from the banks in Denver to build that.
And of course, beer sales primarily grow in the summertime. So here his brewery in the spring has wiped out all of his inventory. Went back to the banks and said, look, if you'll double down, I'll rebuild and I'll pay it off. And he did. But he never borrowed another dime.
He decided that that was not a good way to proceed. So really the company didn't ever borrow money until about the late 1880s. We'd been growing and we needed the additional capital to expand the brewery. So people often ask, why in the world in the 60s and 70s when the company was growing so fast were you only in 11 states? And the simple answer is every dime that we had was invested back into the company because we had no debt.
We couldn't borrow money to grow any faster. So that's in the mid 70s when competition from the east, particularly Anheuser-Busch, came more west. We began to expand our territory and people used to say it had something to do with quality. And to a certain degree it did.
In 11 states we could have pretty good control of quality. But the real reason is we needed to, in order to become a competitor with the big guys and keep them from burying us, we expanded territory. The rest, I guess, as they say, is history. A couple of funny stories after prohibition. Back in those days, a banquet was a big deal. You didn't have fast food restaurants.
You didn't have people on there going out to clubs. I mean, if you had a banquet that was a big deal. And my grandfather said to the, we had no marketing department per se in those days, he said, well, I think we ought to, this is a beer that's good enough for a banquet.
And so that's where a banquet came from. And the other funny story, you know, now we have the Coors Banquet has the stubby bottles and it's a retro. It goes back to the early days after prohibition when we had stubby bottles. And I asked my uncle one time, I don't know if this is a true story or not, I asked my uncle one time, why did we go to Longnecks? He said, well, he said, the cowboys, when they go dancing, would like to put their bottles in the back pocket so they could dance and the beer would slosh out. And so that's how Longnecks got started. Now, I don't know if that's true, accurate or not, but that's why everybody went to Longnecks and everybody had pretty much had stubbies back in the early days after prohibition. So now we've gone back to the, I guess they put their beers down when they go dance.
I don't know, but anyway. And a special thanks to Monty and to Alex for the storytelling and putting that story together so beautifully. And a special thanks to Pete Coors and what a story he had to tell about Adolf Coors. Born in Germany, he became an apprentice and even talked about indentureships. This is back when young people would work for room and board, and that was it. And my goodness, by 1873, having come to America, moved all the way out to the West and learned not by formal education, but by practical education, that is experience, forged and formed a company that was incorporated in 1873, three years before Colorado was even a state. And all these years later, this family business, well, it's still a family business, and that doesn't happen often.
The story of Adolf Coors and Coors Brewing Company, as told by Pete Coors here on Our American Stories. Doing household chores can already be time consuming and tedious, and there's nothing more daunting than facing piles and piles of laundry that need to be done. I mean, that can be overwhelming for anyone. So, if you want to get those larger laundry loads done right and get back to your life, try all free clear mega packs. All free clear mega packs are bigger packs with two times the cleaning ingredients compared to a regular pack so that you can tackle any laundry load without the worry. All free clear mega packs are also 100% free of perfumes and dyes and they're gentle on skin, which is great for any family's sensitive skin needs, which my family, we definitely have sensitive skin. So, the next time the whole family gets home from long vacation or you get the kids back from summer camp or whatever the situation is that's caused this big pile of dirty clothes, just know that all free clear mega packs, they have your back.
Purchase all free clear mega packs today and conquer any laundry load for all fabric types. Hey, you guys. This is Tori and Jenni with the 902.1 OMG podcast. We have such a special episode brought to you by NerdTech ODT. We recorded it at iHeartRadio's 10th poll event, Wango Tango. Did you know that NerdTech ODT Remedipant 75 mg can help migraine sufferers still attend such an exciting event like Wango Tango? It's true. I had one that night and I took my NerdTech ODT and I was present and had an amazing time. Here's a little glimpse of our conversation with some of our closest friends. This episode was brought to you by NerdTech ODT Remedipant 75 mg. Life with migraine attacks can mean missing out on big moments with friends and family.
But thankfully, NerdTech ODT Remedipant 75 mg is the only medication that is proven to treat a migraine attack and prevent episodic migraines in adults. So, lively events like Wango Tango don't have to be missed. Soon millions will make Medicare coverage decisions for next year. And UnitedHealthcare can help you feel confident about your choices. For those eligible, Medicare annual enrollment runs from October 15th through December 7th.
If you're working past age 65, you might be able to delay Medicare enrollment depending on your employer coverage. It can seem confusing, but it doesn't have to be. Visit uhcmedicarehealthplans.com to learn more. UnitedHealthcare, helping people live healthier lives. This is Our American Stories, and our next story is brought to us by a regular contributor, Bill Bright, who brings us the story of the Lionel Train.
Here's Bill with the story. Once American railroads dominated popular culture because they were the only means of fast land transportation. Now, there are other ways to get there from here. They seem less important, and toy trains share the marginalization of their prototypes. For perhaps a decade after World War II, the technical, managerial, and promotional genius of Joshua Lionel Cohen, founder of the Lionel Corporation, made his toy trains a solid part of American middle class boyhood. In 1952 alone, Lionel produced 622,209 engines and 2,460,764 freight and passenger cars.
Ron Hollander's delightful, lavishly illustrated biography of Cohen and his company, All Aboard, states that Lionel's 1952 production eclipsed the nation's railroads, which had a mere 43,000 locomotives and 1.8 million cars in service. Joshua Lionel Cohen was born on Henry Street in Manhattan's Lower East Side on August 25, 1877. He preferred playing ball, bicycling, hiking, and tinkering with mechanical toys to formal education, and soon became fascinated with electricity, its transmission, and its storage in batteries. In the labs at Peter Cooper Institute, he built what may have been, or what he claimed was, Cohen had no false modesty, the first electric doorbell. In 1899, he patented a device for igniting photographer's flash powder by using dry cell batteries to heat a wire fuse. Cohen then parlayed this into a defense contract to equip 24,000 Navy mines with detonators. His ignorance of armament manufacture did not stop him. He used mercuric fulminate, a sensitive and powerful explosive. His supplier's delivery men told him, The company said you should always keep a good deal around.
It's better to be dead than maimed. In 1900, with $12,000 in profits, he began manufacturing electrical novelties at 24 Murray Street in Lower Manhattan as the Lionel Manufacturing Company. He was 23 years old.
Business was slow. He invented a battery-powered electric fan. He said, It was the most beautiful thing you ever saw. It ran like a dream and it had only one thing wrong with it.
You could stand a foot away from the thing and not feel any breeze. While walking on Courtland Street, a few blocks south of his offices, he stopped before Robert Ingersoll's toy store. Cohen was intrigued by store display windows, though he found most boring, and Ingersoll's was no exception.
It was full of cast iron, fire engines, balancing clowns and elephants on wheels, wind-up boats, and a tin locomotive on a pull string, all sitting lifeless. Cohen thought the constant motion of an electric toy might draw a crowd to the window. He looked at the locomotive again. Then he entered the store and sold Ingersoll on the idea that had just come to him on the sidewalk.
He soon returned with the first Lionel train, the Electric Express. It looked like an open wooden cigar box on wheels. As Cohen later said, I sold my first railroad car not as a toy, but as the first animated advertisement in New York outside of sandwich men and live demonstrators.
I sold it for $4. Well, sir, the next day he was back for another, the first customer who saw it bought the advertisement instead of the goods. Ingersoll ordered half a dozen more. Other stores ordered them, too.
Cohen had found his niche. In 1902, he produced his first electric trolley car sold as a set with 30 feet of steel track. It cost $7. This was not cheap.
An industrial worker's wages for a six-day week then averaged $9.42. In 1906, he began using three-rail track, which radically simplified electrical transmission. Now an operator could build an elaborate track layout with turnouts and reversing loops without complicated wiring. A year after that, his catalog listed trolleys, steam and electric locomotives, passenger cars and freight cars, all brightly painted and lettered for the New York Central, Pennsylvania, Lakeshore, and other railroads. Cohen did not lack competition, but Cohen beat them because he produced a reliable product with an expanding line of accessories and was an audacious promoter, selling his toys as educational because he knew parents needed a rationalization for their purchase. Knowledge of electricity is valuable, not only as a profession but as an education, whether one is an electrical engineer or a bell hanger.
The kids couldn't have cared less. By 1912, Cohen had 150 employees. World War I stopped the import of German toy trains, and without serious domestic competition, Lionel became the dominant market player with its large, lavishly illustrated color catalogs bringing the message to millions. By the late 30s, Cohen's models of the era's great locomotives, the New York Central's Hudson, the Milwaukee Road's Hiawatha, and the Jersey Central's Blue Comet, started, accelerated, slowed, and stopped in response to push-button remote controls. They pulled an endless cascade of boxcars, hopper cars, tank cars, and passenger cars. In 1929, Cohen unveiled the Transcontinental Limited, which stretched nine feet.
It cost $110, then more than a secondhand Ford Model T car. As John R. Stilgo noted in Metropolitan Corridor, his study of railroads in American culture, Lionel's catalogs emphasized the trains and their environment, the bridges, stations, signal towers, tunnels, and turntables, all placed among twisting lines of track. Crossing signals with flashing lights, ringing bells, and descending gates protected the miniature citizens of Lionel City and Lionelville from onrushing expresses.
Expansion was interrupted only by World War II. By 1945, most Americans hungered for distractions. Cohen's vision of America, as reflected in his trains and accessories, struck the exact chord of nostalgia and progress, and the orders poured in. Lionel's showroom on East 26th Street in Manhattan held a huge layout with a four-track main line. Cars coupled and uncoupled, drawbridges rose and fell, and coal bunkers dumped coal into waiting hopper cars.
Cattle herded themselves into and out of stock cars. As trains passed through grade crossings, tiny crossing guards popped from their shacks to wave their lanterns. Whistles, chuffing sounds, and even smoke came out of the locomotives.
Cohen, who had handed over Lionel's presidency to his son, Lawrence, loved to spend hours among the crowds, occasionally providing expert advice to customers. Hollander recounts how Lawrence, who lived at Two Sutton Place, was awakened by his doorbell at 6 a.m. one Christmas Day. He found two small neighbors in pajamas who asked, Can you fix our trains? Understandably, their parents were still asleep.
Lawrence in bathrobe and slippers followed them up to their apartment. The president of Lionel soon had the trains running. Then he wished the boys a merry Christmas and padded back downstairs to bed. The good times didn't last.
They never do. From 1953, Lionel's best year, to 1959, sales dropped by more than half. It was television.
Hollander noted that families got together to watch I Love Lucy, not to wire Lionel's new ice depot and watch a tiny man push blocks of ice down the open hatch of a toy refrigerator car. It was aging. As kids grew older, they became more interested in Elvis, James Dean, girls, and cars. And it was the decline of American railroads. Cohen's marketing genius had perfectly fit the nation's mood for perhaps eight years.
Then, suddenly, it didn't. In 1958, the company lost money for the first time since the Depression. In September 1959, Lawrence returned from a sales trip to the Far East to learn that his father and sister had sold their shares of stock to a group of businessmen led by Cohen's great nephew, Roy Cohn. Cohn paid $15 for each of his Lionel shares in 1959. Four years later, he sold them for $5.25.
Lionel survives to this day, despite a string of bankruptcies and reorganizations. In 1999, A&E produced an hour-long show, ranking the top ten toys of the 20th century. Lionel was number four, preceded only by the Yo-Yo, Crayons, and Barbie. If Cohen had been alive, he died on September 8, 1965, and was buried within hearing of a secondary freight line at the Long Island Railroad, the old promoter would have screamed in protest.
This was unfair. The trains should have come first. And great job as always by Robbie, and a special thanks to Bill Bryke, who have done what Cohen managed to do, which is to create one of the great toys of the 20th century, ranked number four. The story of Joshua Lionel Cohen. In the end, the story of the Lionel toy train, here on Our American Stories. Here on Our American Stories.
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