Ole Christiansen--Lego
The story of Legos, one of the most successful toys of all time, began in the early 1930s, when the carpenter Ole Kirk Christiansen from Billund, Denmark, began making miniature wooden versions of the furniture and houses he built, to serve as design models. His small design studio had burned down almost 10 years earlier, but Christiansen had built an even larger workshop in its place. The effects of the worldwide depression starting in 1929 had hurt his business, however, and he was in danger of going bankrupt. In 1932, Christiansen decided to start producing these models, as well as small wooden pull-carts, trucks, and cars, as toys for children. He named his company Lego, a contraction of the Danish phrase leg godt, or "play well."
Under Christiansen and his son Godtfred, who began working with his father in the mid-1930s, the fledgling Lego Group soon began producing toys made of plastic, a new material that was just beginning to come into widespread use. In 1947, Lego became the first in Denmark to buy a machine that injected plastic into molds, to be used for toy production. Though consumers and retailers at the time were suspicious of the safety and durability of plastic, Christiansen persevered, and in 1949 the company came out with its first version of interlocking plastic bricks, called "Automatic Binding Blocks."
Made in bright primary colors, the Automatic Binding Blocks functioned like traditional wooden building blocks, but had several round studs on top and hollow rectangular bottoms, so they could be locked together. Though sturdy when locked, the bricks were also easy enough to manipulate that they could be easily taken apart by a child. The blocks were given a new name, Lego Blocks, in 1953.
Though sales of Legos were initially sluggish, they picked up with the introduction, in 1955, of the Lego Building System. The system grew to include not only improved, lighter-weight bricks but windows and doors, trucks and motorcycles, and tiny human figures. By the time Ole Kirk Christiansen died in 1958, Lego was a steadily growing company. By 1967, more than 18 million sets of Legos were being sold annually. The following year, a Lego theme park opened in Billund, boasting models of elaborate miniature towns built entirely of Lego Bricks.
In the half-century since their introduction, Christiansen's colorful plastic blocks have retained their popularity, even in an age when toys have gone in a decidedly higher-tech direction. In 2000, Lego was named Toy of the Century by Fortune magazine, beating out other iconic contenders such as Barbie and the beloved teddy bear. Today, the Lego Group produces 15 billion components of their system per year, including 306 tiny rubber tires for their Lego trucks--a figure that makes the company the world's number one tire manufacturer. Lego also makes an effort to stay on the cutting edge. In 2004, the company launched LEGOfactory.com, a Web site where users can download components to build their own Lego models. Lego has also partnered with video game publisher LucasArts to launch a series of Lego-themed video games, including the top-selling LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy.
