When was doh invented

So it may come as a surprise that it was not originally intended to be a toy. In the late s, a young man named Cleo McVicker was tasked with shutting down and selling off the remaining assets of a failing Cincinnati soap company called Kutol.

While heading the company in , Cleo met with representatives from the Kroger grocery chain who were reportedly looking for a wallpaper cleaner to sell in their stores. At the time, burning coal was a common way to heat homes, but it left soot that was hard to clean off the wallpaper. All consumers had to do was roll it across their soiled walls to clean the soot and dirt.

It was a big hit with the kids. They rolled it out and used cookie cutters to make shapes, which Zufall dried out in her oven to make ornaments. Originally an off-white color sold in one-gallon cans, the modeling compound was soon available in red, yellow and blue and in smaller packages.

Keeshan loved the product and made an arrangement with McVicker to use Play-Doh at least once a week on his show. Sales skyrocketed, and Rainbow Crafts struggled to keep up with the overwhelming demand for this new toy. In , accessories became part of the Play-Doh line when McVicker hired two engineers to develop a product that could be used in multiple ways. The result was the hugely popular opens in a new window Fun Factory that, with minimal force, would extrude Play-Doh into various shapes and designs.

By , Rainbow Crafts was shipping more than one million cans of Play-Doh per year. General Mills purchased the company one year later. Currently Hasbro continues to manufacture and sell Play-Doh. Measure ad performance. Select basic ads. Create a personalised ads profile. Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Share Flipboard Email.

Mary Bellis. Inventions Expert. Mary Bellis covered inventions and inventors for ThoughtCo for 18 years. She is known for her independent films and documentaries, including one about Alexander Graham Bell. Updated January 20, Featured Video. Cite this Article Format. Bellis, Mary.