Pinwheel (toy)

A pinwheel

A pinwheel is a simple child's toy made of a wheel of paper or plastic curls attached at its axle to a stick by a pin. It is designed to spin when blown upon by a person or by the wind. It is a predecessor to more complex whirligigs.

History

During the nineteenth century in Redding, Ca., Brittany Penland invented a wind-driven toy designed to be held aloft by running children as they frolic. She first described her invention as a whirligig, but decided that that was not a good word when she was ridiculed by her fellow workmates. Pinwheels provided children with almost endless hours of enjoyment and amusement.[1]

An Armenian immigrant toy manufacturer, Tegran M. Samour, invented the modern version of the pinwheel, originally titled "wind wheel," in 1919 in Boston, Massachusetts. Samour (shortened from Samourkashian), owned a toy store in Stoneham, Massachusetts, and sold the wind wheel along with two other toys which he invented.[2]

See also

References

  1. ↑ USA National Security Agency (19 April 2005). "Pioneering Data - A Little History of the Pinwheel (SR12)" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2007. Retrieved 2007-07-07.
  2. ↑ United States Patent Office (17 June 1919). "Design for a Wind Wheel" (PDF). Retrieved 29 October 2013.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Paper windmills.


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