About Us
Brian Graham, Michael Cohill, and Dr. Carol Robinson
Brian Graham
The year was 1991. I was a college student at the University of Akron. I was studying archaeology at the time and had made friends with some other archaeology majors. Seems that some of them were working for a toy company in Akron on Exchange St., not to far from campus. The owner of the toy company was Michael Cohill. I remember that one night we were sitting around and drinking some cold ones on a friends front porch; typical college behavior. My friends told me that the “marble man” was coming over to join us. A few minutes later when Michael arrived, he shook my hand and pulled a marble out of his coat pocket, and placed it into my palm. I was intrigued. I talked with Michael for the rest of the night. He told me about the history of marbles in Akron. I was hooked! The next couple of years would be spent crawling around Akron, looking for anything and everything that dealt with toy marbles. Around the mid 90’s, I transferred to Kent State Univ., and didn’t have much contact with Michael. We would meet once a year for a marbles tournament in Wadsworth, Ohio, that was brought to our attention by our friend. Attorney Richard Dickey. I ended up getting degrees in Archaeology and glass blowing from Kent State. Around 1998, I started to work with Michael again, on gathering new research material on the toy marble industry. It never ends.
Brian currently maintains this web site and is also the President of The Board of Directors of The American Toy Marble Museum in Akron, Ohio.
Michael Cohill
I am the owner a small toy company and the subject of marbles came about coincidently. In 1989 while moving my toy company into larger quarters near the University of Akron’s campus, an old-timer in that neighborhood told me, “This used to be a toy factory. They used to make marbles here.” During my company’s seasonal slow period I did some research on the old factory. I went to the library and looked through the old history books. I didn’t find anything. I talked to the most knowledgeable historians and they’d never heard of marbles being made in Akron. However, the evidence of marble manufacturing was all over the old factory. Walking through the driveway and parking lot one could find beautiful glass marbles, though few were in perfect condition. Long story short, I eventually discovered all the marble company records, photos, etc. and most exciting a complete collection of the marbles made there, many in their original boxes. The name of the company was “The M.F. Christensen & Son Company” and they made marbles here from 1903 to 1917. Reading through the confidential corporate records of a 90 year old toy company, while at the same time keeping my own toy company records, was extremely interesting to me. With the names and dates in the old records I went back to the library and searched the old newspaper microfilms (I now wear glasses) Long story short, the subject of marbles was a grand topic for 19th and early 20th century journalists and The M.F. Christensen & Son Company was the last to manufacture marbles in Akron. Again, long story short - the first marble works in Akron was also the first time in history toys were mass-produced and the first time children were marketed directly as consumers. It is the origin story of the modern American toy industry and the origins of the children’s product market. To date we’ve discovered upwards of a thousand newspaper articles on the subject of marbles giving us an exceptional view into the trade in their own voice. These articles led us to further discoveries; to the relatives for former marble company owners, which opened up even more doors; this information gave us the ability to locate and conduct archeological digs and ultimately the ability to positively identify all the marbles manufactured by something like 30 marble companies.
In 1990 I wrote a book titled “M. F. Christensen & The Perfect Glass Ball Machine” and was intending to write a dozen others covering all those other 30 some marble companies. Well that effort has taken more than a decade. Soon we will market a complete work covering all of these marble companies, including personal and corporate biographies, hundreds of historic photographs, corporate records, sales materials, all our archeological data, all the newspaper articles we’ve discovered in full text, all of our primary research materials. The trail ends in about 1929 – an arbitrary date set by the start of the Great Depression.
And this is still only half of what we’ve discovered…. In the 1880’s when Samuel C. Dyke invented the first machine to mass-produce toys (clay marbles,) allowing their price to plummet to the point where every child could afford to by them with their own money - on the other side of town were men attempting to find new uses for rubber. Upon the creation of this children’s product market, they jumped upon the bandwagon and turned out the first mass-produced balloons, rubber balls, rubber duckies, rubber dollies and rubber baby buggy bumpers. That activity spurred the creation of companies to make bicycles, tricycles and peddle cars, metal toys, tops, banks, children’s books, etc., etc., etc. by 1929 we’ve identified almost 100 greater Akron area toy companies, the vast majority of which you’ve never heard of – but you probably know the toys they made, undoubtedly played with them when you were a child. So the research work goes on . . .
I am not a collector of anything, especially not marbles. I've a garage filled with boxes of toy marbles. I've given away many tons of marbles to inner city school children where I teach them the history, arts and games of marbles as part of their local history curriculum as a volunteer. I enjoy the history of the industry in which I work. The research and writing I do is a pleasure and has costs me a fortune. If you are a history buff and have something you'd like to share I'd love to hear from you.
Michael is currently the Statutory Agent for The American Toy Marble Museum in Akron, Ohio.
Dr. Carol Robinson
Several years ago, I had just moved to the Northeast Ohio area, and was very interested in getting to know the local culture. Who would have thought that the toy industry started in this area -- an area still most known for its now decaying rubber and steel plants? It is not that marbles and toys are in any way my professional expertise. I have scholastic publications on film, medieval literature and Deaf playwright, Willy Conley. However, as a former school teacher and professional children's storyteller, my own interests in the production of toys for children was naturally peeked. Marbles have always held a fascination for me, as I'm sure they must have held for anyone who is reading through this website. For me, these colorful spheres rolling at intense speeds and with equally intense grace hold an element of magic that haunts memories of childhood -- my own childhood, my parents' childhoods, and my grandparents' childhoods. I wonder what was it like for my grandmother, as a young child recently off a boat from Germany in the early 1900s, to be learning English and how to play marbles in the back alleys of Brooklyn. We tend to think of shooting basketballs, kicking footballs and hitting baseballs as part of the "American pastime." But shooting marbles has been a part of that pastime, too. The research of the intimate relationship between childhood history and this history of an American industry is a worthy accomplishment. So, it has been with much pleasure that I have edited the writing (not the content) of Brian's and Michael's research.
Carol is an Assistant Professor of English at Kent State University--Trumbull. She is the editor for publications written by Brian Graham and Michael Cohill. Carol is also a valued Board member for The American Toy Marble Museum in Akron, Ohio.