Selections from the Hearings before the Subcommittee on Commerce and Finance about Toy Industry
5/1969
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Between the end of World War II and the early-1960s, the Baby Boom fueled the rapid expansion of the toy industry. While most of these toys were perfectly safe for kids, others attracted negative attention from physicians, consumer advocates, and the parents of injured children. Risky items including lawn darts, blowguns, home chemistry sets, miniature electric irons, baby rattles with small parts, and dolls put together with wires, tacks, and straight pins appeared in stores and mail-order catalogs across the country.
Customer complaints were instrumental to the passage of the amended Child Protection and Toy Safety Act of 1969, which extended the power of the FDA to ban risky toys to items with thermal, mechanical, and electrical hazards. When the House Subcommittee on Commerce and Finance took up the bill, Arnold B. Elkind, the Chairman of the National Commission on Product Safety, filed seven pages of examples of dangerous but currently legal goods with eighty related comments from the public. The quotations included from citizen-consumers across the country communicated three messages to policymakers: toys were
exposing children to unreasonable risks, toymakers were failing to correct or to warn buyers about these risks, and families were willing to concede some of their freedom of choice as shoppers for federal regulation.
Customer complaints were instrumental to the passage of the amended Child Protection and Toy Safety Act of 1969, which extended the power of the FDA to ban risky toys to items with thermal, mechanical, and electrical hazards. When the House Subcommittee on Commerce and Finance took up the bill, Arnold B. Elkind, the Chairman of the National Commission on Product Safety, filed seven pages of examples of dangerous but currently legal goods with eighty related comments from the public. The quotations included from citizen-consumers across the country communicated three messages to policymakers: toys were
exposing children to unreasonable risks, toymakers were failing to correct or to warn buyers about these risks, and families were willing to concede some of their freedom of choice as shoppers for federal regulation.
This primary source comes from the Publications of the U.S. Government.
Full Citation: Selections from the Hearings before the Subcommittee on Commerce and Finance of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce House of Representatives; 5/1969; Government Publications, 1861–1992; Publications of the U.S. Government, Record Group 287; National Archives Building, Washington, DC. [Online Version, https://docsteach.org/documents/document/hearings-subcommittee-on-commerce-and-finance-about-toys, May 16, 2025]Rights: Public Domain, Free of Known Copyright Restrictions. Learn more on our privacy and legal page.