Yo-yos

[Mike Brehm]

At 05:07 PM 6/25/97 -0400, doktor at primenet.com wrote:
>On NPR's Morning Edition today there was a piece on yo-yos, which are
>apparently experiencing a vogue in Japan and Europe.  The reporter
>inverviewed a spokesman from the Duncan company, here in Ohio, which makes
>most of the yo-yo's sold today.  In the last few years, production has
>jumped from having one line going for one shift a day to having three lines
>going all three shifts...and they still can't keep up with the demand.
>
> <snippage of NPR report...>

Finally something I can chime in on! Wahoo! I did research for a writer
about a year ago on toy history and yo-yos were the primary topic of
interest. As a matter of fact, she was in the library today and mentioned
the NPR piece to me (damn, I wish'd I'd known!) Of course, I can't find the
book I was looking for, but this is from "A History of Toys" by Antonia
Fraser (1972, Hamlyn Publishing Group, Ltd., pg. 15):

        ...Sometimes a toy will vanish for a couple of centuries,
        apparently forever, only to reappear in a completely different
        part of the world for no obvious reason.
           The yo-yo is an excellent example of this phenomenon. The
        yo-yo was known in the Far East in the most ancient times, and
        in the Phillipines was actually used as a weapon, its user
        hiding in a tree, and striking his vistim lethally on the head.
        Centuries later the diablo, a toy from the same family as the yo-yo,
        was brought to France from Peking by missionaries, who knew
        that the French Minister of State, Bertin, was a great amatuer
        of Chinese curiosities. As the 'emigrette' the yo-yo swept
        France under the Directory during the 1790s. Over a hundred
        years later it swept England and America in the 1920s, to the
        extent that a Persian newspaper wrote an angry leader denouncing
        this dangerous toy imported from the United States as an example
        of a time-wasting and immoral novelty: 'This game, like the
        deadly plagues which used to come from India or Arabia, has come
        from Europe...even mothers who formerly attended to the care of
        children and households, now spend all their time playing yo-yo'.

I remember from my research that a rough date was established for the
invention/discovery/whatever of the yo-yo and that it did roughly correspond
to about 8-10 thousand years ago. But of course, I cannot find that
particular book. Better strap my Reference Librarian hat on tighter and go
lookin'.

Mike