History of Play-doh

Play-doh is a very interesting product. This is one of the best from rags to riches to rags to riches again stories ever. The start of Play-doh's story starts out as a cleaner actually. In 1912 the company Kutol Products Company was founded. By the year 1927, Kutol Products was facing closure with no prospects. Cleo McVicker hired his brother Noah on to manage the plant. Cleo decided to try on the hat of sales and became the companies salesman. Noah didn't only run the plant he was suppose to help develop new products as well.

1933 rolls around and Cleo pitches a wallpaper cleaner to Kroger, a grocery store chain. Kroger decides to go with Kutol for a wallpaper cleaner to replace their current wallpaper cleaner. The fun part of this information is that Cleo agreed to fifteen thousand cases of the cleaner. A cleaner that Kutol had never made and on top of this, if Kutol was late in delivery of the wallpaper cleaner the company would pay Kroger five thousand dollars in fines. An amount that doesn't seem like a lot today, but with the unstable financial foundation of Kutol - this amount would have bankrupted the company. Cleo McVicker was a man that had some steel in him. Kutol did make the deadline and this is possibly what led Kutol Products Company to be the largest wallpaper cleaner manufacturer in the world for the next twenty years.

Now the 1950's approach and fewer and fewer people are using coal to heat their houses. With the use of natural gas, oil, and electric heat there is less need to clean wallpaper because the new methods are cleaner. And once again, Kutol was facing closure. And the precursor to all this is that in 1949 Cleo had died in a plane crash. With the company spiraling down, Cleo's wife, Irma McVicker, hires her son Joseph McVicker and son-in-law Bill Rhodenbaugh to change the company around and save it. Joseph talking with his sister-in-law was told that her students needed a better modeling clay to work with because they were too young for the hard and barely pliable clay. Joseph's mind was at work with this and in 1955 he tested some of the wallpaper cleaner in Cincinnati, Ohio area schools. Focusing on kindergarten and younger ages. The teachers and schools loved the off-white pliable modeling compound.

Joseph and his uncle Noah started the Rainbow Crafts Company, Inc. in 1956. There are a lot of accounts that state the McVicker brothers started this company but it was Joseph McVicker who was brought into the company in 1949 and his uncle who helped turn the company around the first time in 1933. The company received a patent for its modeling compound in 1965. And from the sales of Play-doh Joseph McVicker is a millionaire by the time he turns 27.

The Rainbow Crafts Company ended up being bought by General Mills. After awhile, General Mills merged Rainbow Crafts with Kenner Products. The Tonka Corp. purchases the Kenner line from General Mills and in 1991 Hasbro bought Tonka. Hasbro is still the current producer of Play-doh. There are many more colors than the single original color of off-white. There are over 125 accessories now produced for the specific purpose of assisting in modeling Play-doh. And Play-doh has become an American story of rags to riches twice over.

Originally was one color: off-white.

The recipe is a secret and has changed countless times.

Play-doh is non-toxic.

It was created in Ohio.

Was originally sold in 1.5 pound cardboard can.

Play-doh was a wallpaper cleaner.

Woodward & Lothrop (in Washington D.C.) was the first department store to carry Play-doh.

2 c flour
2 c warm water
1 c salt
2 T vegetable oil
1 T cream of tartar
Various food colorings

A basic recipe. Mix them all together and you get Play Dough. This is not Play-doh's recipe of course. But still fun none-the-less.