Pinwheel (toy)

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.

A pinwheel

History

During the nineteenth century in the United States, any wind-driven toy held aloft by a running child was characterized as a whirligig, including pinwheels. Pinwheels provided many children with numerous 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]

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See also

References
  1. Fritzinger, Terry; Fritzinger, James (19 April 2005). "Pioneering Data - A Little History of the Pinwheel (SR12)" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2007-07-13. Retrieved 2007-07-07.
  2. United States Patent Office (17 June 1919). "Design for a Wind Wheel" (PDF). Retrieved 29 October 2013.
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