In searching for information about Sherman, and Lionel catalog artistry, I came across this very interesting history of Joshua Lionel Cowen:
http://www.ideafinder.com/hist...nventions/lionel.htm
A snippet:
In 1899, he patented a device for igniting photographers’ flash powder by using dry cell batteries to heat a wire fuse. Cowen than parlayed this into a defense contract to equip 24,000 Navy mines with detonators. His ignorance of armament manufacture did not stop him. He used mercuric fulminate, a sensitive and powerful explosive...
On September 5, 1900, Cowen and a colleague from Acme, Harry C. Grant, started a business in lower Manhattan called the Lionel Manufacturing Company, but they had nothing to manufacture...Cowen was walking through lower Manhattan when he stopped at a toy store window where he saw, among the toys, a push train. He then had the vision of it going around a circle of track without needing attention. This was the vision which started a legend...
Several changes occurred in 1904. Cowen married Cecelia Liberman, the Lionel workshop was moved nine blocks to the north, and Cowen hired an Italian Immigrant, Mario Caruso. In future years it would be Caruso who did the dirtier job of keeping the factory running smoothly while Cowen managed sales...
In 1906 a great change took place in the line. In that year Lionel added a third rail which carried the current and the outer rails, which were the ground rails, were only 2 1/8 inches apart. This was the system adopted by most other manufacturers. They were rigidly pre-assembled. Three trolleys, two steam engines, two passenger cars, seven freight cars and a wall transformer were offered. Cowen's son, Lawrence, was born in 1907, and became the company's emblem on boxes and in catalogs and was later to become its President.
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Please note the list of historical references at the end of the article which may have value all by themselves.
I'm not sure if this history is entirely accurate, but, as Robert Duvall's newspaper character says in "The Natural", "It's Going to make a Good Story..." For example, Is the following passage 100% correct? I thought that HO gauge is the most popular:
"1915 O-Gauge was introduced, which eventually became the most popular scale of train..."
A minor point about an informative, detailed history, however. Of particular interest, I didn't realize that the original Lionel Manufacturing Company was started by Cowen and Harry C. Grant. I have no idea who Harry C. Grant was, and his involvement with the fledgling manufacturing company.
The remainder of the history could be accurate, and, the footnotes are impressive. Do you have any recommendations as to excellent texts or articles about the history of Lionel, or, of Joshua Lionel Cowen?
