The Daily Lesson

Our story starts with the Great Depression.  Ole Kirk Christiansen lost his job as a carpenter, so he started making wooden toys, and that quickly developed into a company that he named “Play Well,” only it was in Danish, which was “leg Godt.”  Yup.  Lego.  That company was founded on August 10, 1932.

The first Lego bricks came out in 1949, then called “Automatic Binding Bricks.”   Not a particularly catchy name, and not an original idea.  Christiansen was inspired by Kiddiecraft Self-Locking Building Bricks, which were invented by a British guy named Hilary Fisher Page in the 1930s.  Really, there’s not much difference between the Kiddiecraft Interlocking Bricks and Legos, except Legos were more successful.  The Lego company eventually bought up all of Kiddiecraft’s patents on their interlocking bricks.  Kidiecraft is still around, but along the way they lost one of the “D’s.”  And they are much smaller.  Of course, compared to Lego, everything is smaller. 

It was in the 1950s that the Lego company settled on their best idea... well... ever.  A toy system:  A whole bunch of toys that are all related.  Sure, with this set I can make a plane.  And with this one I can make a car.  But I can put them together and make a flying car!  And the more sets I buy, the more things I can create!  Still, Legos didn’t sell very well at first.  People preferred wooden and metal toys.  But mostly, Legos just didn’t work very well.  Then, in 1958, they came up with the idea of putting hollow tubes on the underside of the bricks.  Now the bricks would stick together.  Now you could really build stuff.

In 1961 Lego wheels became a thing.  Now your Lego creation could roll.  In 1964, for the first time instructions were included with Legos.  The first series – the Lego Train, which came with a battery powered motor – was introduced in 1966.  And in 1968 the first Legoland park was opened in Billund, Denmark.  It was an elaborate miniature town built out of Legos that attracted over 600,000 people in its first year, and millions more after that as it grew ever larger.

From there, Lego went nuts, so to speak.  They expanded into adult sets and got increasingly more technical.  People were setting world records and building ridiculously complicated replicas of things like the Taj Mahal and the Eifel Tower.  There were Lego people, Lego animals, Lego monsters... Lego everything.  Like I’m telling anybody anything new.

Lego peaked in the 1990s.  A bunch of new designers came in, seeking to make the sets easier to put together, but that’s not what attracted people to Legos to begin with.  Since then Lego has waxed and waned.  But maybe it’s not the themed sets that people want.  Sure, it’s cool to put together a pirate ship, but how many times do you want to do it?  It’s kinda like a puzzle.  It might be fun the first time through, but have you ever put together the same puzzle twice?  Maybe, just maybe, the thing people want the most out of Legos is the ability to make stuff up on their own.  And if that’s the case... really, how many Legos do you need?  But there is one sure thing about Legos.  If you only had one Lego in your entire house, you’d step on it barefooted.

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