As a boy in Los Angeles in the 1950s, Roger Carp received a Lionel electric train set for Chanukah. Like many boys who get such a gift, he never forgot it; but unlike most of them, the toy deeply influenced his adult life.
Today, Milwaukeean Carp is senior editor of the magazine Classic Toy Trains. He is also the author of a recently published book on “The Art of Lionel Trains: Toy Trains and American Dreams” (Kalmbach, 144 pages, $29.95).
And his book not only contains pictures and stories to delight any toy train lover; it also shines a light on American social and cultural history, and displays a piece of American Jewish history as well.
The founder of Lionel trains was Joshua Lionel Cowen (1877-1965), a New York City-born child of post-Civil War Jewish immigrants whose last name originally was Cohen. He apparently was a genius at both inventing and marketing.
He not only created the trains and the company. He also oversaw aggressive advertising campaigns that built on, and reflected changes in, American cultural images of the ideal family, of gender roles, of the value and role of toys in educating character, and of Christmas celebrations — all of which are illustrated and discussed in Carp’s book.
In this way, Cowen reminds Carp of such other children of Jewish immigrants as songwriter Irving Berlin, movie mogul Louis B. Meyer and singer Al Jolson. Like them, Cowen was “an assimilated Jew who understood American culture so well he could move into it and grow rich at the expense of the sentimentality of the majority culture,” said Carp. “That to me is fascinating.”
But unlike many such Jews, Cowen didn’t completely cut himself off from the Jewish community, said Carp. He remained affiliated with a synagogue and was “a player” in the New York United Jewish Appeal.
Carp has a doctorate in American history and said he tried to apply all his graduate school skills to the roughly nine-year “labor of love” that went into the book.
“If you love toy trains, the book will bring back memories,” he said. “But if you are interested in American culture, the Jewish angle and gender roles, I think it is a valuable book. I tried to write with a broad perspective.”
And by the way, Carp said he still has the locomotive and the coal car from his original Lionel set.
The book is available through Kalmbach, Amazon.com and the Harry W. Schwartz bookstores. For more information, visit www.rogercarp.com.
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