Toys! at The Henry Ford

By the '60s, toy companies-looking to boost profits-paid less attention to the needs and values of parents, and increasingly designed playthings that appealed to children's desire for fantasy and adventure. Television made it easy to advertise directly to these young, yet influential, consumers. And parents purchased the toys to make their children happy. Davy Crockett was replaced by Batman, as superheroes began to push historical heroes out of the spotlight. Sales of toy trains and baby dolls decreased as kids demanded space-age toys and fashion dolls instead. Even the materials toys were made out of changed, as the former standards, wood and metal, gave way to plastic. Many of the 1960s toys designed to appeal to kids--like Barbie, Etch A Sketch, and the Easy Bake Oven--have become classics