HOLLIDAYSBURG, Pa. -- One day in 1943, Richard James, an engineer in a Philadelphia shipyard, watched a torsion spring fall off his desk. That night, he went home and told his wife, Betty, about ...

In 1945, Mrs. James and her husband at the time, Richard James, founded the company that would later make Slinky, the toy that got her inducted into the Toy Industry Hall of Fame in 2001.