Mickey & Minnie Mouse Save the Lionel Train Co.

After the phenomenal success of Disney’s partnership with the Ingersoll-Waterbury Watch Company, Kay Kamen recognized a similar opportunity with the Lionel Manufacturing Company, a beloved American company that was also facing hard times due to the depression.

In 1900, a young Joshua Lionel Cowen founded the Lionel Manufacturing Company with the goal of making miniature trains for use as a means to attract attention to retailers’ storefront windows.  However, store owners quickly discovered that customers weren’t coming into their stores to buy what was on display in their windows, but instead they wanted to place an order for the miniature Lionel trains!  Before he knew it, Mr. Cowen was selling toy trains and their detailed accessories to parents of children all across America, and by 1928 The Lionel Company had become the leading manufacturer of toy trains in America, as well as overseas.

Unfortunately, the Great Depression of 1929 brought sales to a halt, as few families had the money available to buy such luxury items as toy trains.  New locomotives, rolling stock, and layout pieces were produced in an attempt to drive sales, and even non-train items, such as a toy stove, were introduced so as to cater to girls and their mothers, but times were too difficult, and by May of 1934 The Lionel Company had gone into receivership and was facing bankruptcy.

Seeing an opportunity for another deal like that he struck with the Ingersoll-Waterbury Watch Company, Kamen approached The Lionel Company in July of 1934 and suggested they work together to produce a new Lionel toy, a Mickey and Minnie Mouse Hand Car. Soon, a deal was signed and production began.  Priced at only $1.00, families could again afford to buy a Lionel toy, one that included a wind-up hand car in red or green, a circular O-gauge track, and two of the most famous characters in the world at the controls, Mickey and Minnie Mouse.  The toy was an instant and wildly popular hit, more so than the Mickey Mouse watches, selling one million units in about a year’s time, thus saving The Lionel Company from bankruptcy and allowing it to continue down the tracks to create treasured memories for millions of families across America and around the world.  

Learn more about early Disney merchandise in the book, Disney History - Rare & Unknown.