The surprising origin of Silly Putty

Kids today will never know the joy of taking a glob of Silly Putty and smooshing it onto the colored comics section of the Sunday paper and then stretching it into sillier cartoonish characters.  Did you know you cannot do that with Silly Putty anymore due to the changed chemical content?  The story of its invention is quite interesting!

Necessity is the mother of invention, but sometimes, a dud becomes a million-dollar toy. That’s the bizarre backstory of Silly Putty, the “toy with one moving part” that has entertained generations.

The tale begins in 1943 during World War II. With Japan controlling key rubber-producing regions in Asia, the U.S. government was desperate for a homegrown substitute. Rubber was crucial for everything, from military tires and boots to gas masks.

General Electric engineer James Wright was tasked with creating a synthetic rubber. In his lab in New Haven, Connecticut, he combined boric acid and silicone oil. The result? A fascinating, bouncy, stretchy gob of goo.

Unfortunately for the war effort, this “nutty putty” was a complete flop—it didn’t have the properties needed to replace rubber. Wright sent samples to scientists around the world, but no one could find a practical use for the intriguing substance. 

The putty languished for years, shared mostly as an amusing novelty among friends and family. Its big break came in 1949 when it reached Ruth Fallgatter, a toy store owner.

An indebted advertising consultant named Peter Hodgson convinced Fallgatter to package the goo and feature it in her catalog. Initially called “bouncing putty” and selling for $2 a glob, it outsold everything in the catalog except Crayola crayons.

When Fallgatter decided to drop the item, Hodgson—already $12,000 in debt—saw his opportunity. In 1950, he borrowed another $147, bought a large quantity of the putty, and repackaged it. He hired Yale students to separate the goo into one-ounce balls, placed them inside red plastic eggs, and gave it the now-iconic name: Silly Putty.

Silly Putty debuted at the 1950 International Toy Fair with little fanfare. Sales picked up only after it was stocked at a few select stores. A few months later, a reporter for The New Yorker magazine stumbled across it and wrote a fascinated article in the “Talk of the Town” section. The article was a catalyst: orders immediately poured in.

Initially marketed as a novelty toy for adults, the simple gob of goo soon captured the imagination of children. By 1955, it was a massive children’s success, famous not just for its bounce and stretch, but also for its ability to copy images from comic books (a trick that no longer works due to changes in printing inks).

The legend of Silly Putty was sealed in 1957 when TV commercials, strategically placed during The Howdy Doody Show and Captain Kangaroo, cemented its place in pop culture. Its status as an American icon was solidified when astronauts took Silly Putty to the moon on the 1968 Apollo 8 mission. Happy Collecting!