Call Number:

CDG-A.Public Action Coalition on Toys

Repository:

Swarthmore College Peace Collection

Extent:

0.83 linear ft. (10 linear in.)

Preferred Citation:

[Identification of item] in the Public Action Coalition on Toys Collected Records (CDG-A), Swarthmore College Peace Collection.

Date:

1966-1981 (inclusive)

Creator:

Public Action Coalition on Toys

Abstract:

This collection documents the efforts of two groups that worked to raise the issue of violence perpetuated by the manufacture and sale of war toys to children.

The Public Action Coalition on Toys (PACT) was organized by Ralph Nader's staff as a non-profit organization committed to encouraging the development of safe and sensible quality toys, and to discouraging the production of toys that injured, exploited, or limited a child's growth, safety, or welfare. It united groups that wanted to lobby the toy trade to make more socially responsible decisions regarding their products. Among the organizations represented in the coalition were Action for Children's Television, Association on American Indian Affairs, Citizen Action Group, Council on Interracial Books for Children, Gray Panthers Network, National Black Feminist Organization, National Organization for Women, National Society for the Prevention of Blindness, Parents for Responsibility in the Toy Industry, Public Interest Research Groups (of Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, and North Carolina), Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, Women Strike for Peace, Women's Action Alliance, and Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. PACT believed that toys were not merely playthings, but held an important role in advancing the social, emotional, physical and intellectual development of children, and that adults must make certain that toys were safe, non-racist, non-sexist, non-violent, and imaginative.

In the spring of 1973, Victoria Reiss, one of the organizers of PACT, learned that The Quaker Oats Company had taken over the ownership of Louis Marx, one of the largest manufacturers of toy guns. She wrote to Robert Stuart Jr., President of The Quaker Oats Company, pointing out the irony of Quaker William Penn being the trademark for a company now making a game of violence and killing. The company's reply stated: "Our belief at this time is that we should continue to offer toy guns for sale and that the decision on their usage should be a matter of parental responsibility." Reiss again wrote to highlight the fact that toy industry estimates were that at least a third of the toys were bought by children themselves. In the fall of 1973, PACT asked pediatricians, professors and school personnel to write to both The Quaker Oats Company and Marx asking them to be leaders in the toy industry in discontinuing toy guns. This campaign bore fruit, as The Quaker Oats Company decided in Oct. 1974 to agree with PACT's plea.

PACT continued its efforts with other toy manufacturing companies over the next seven(?) years, including offering awards to those companies that created and sold "life-enhancing toys." It is not known when PACT was disbanded.

This small collection documents the efforts of two groups to highlight the violence perpetuated by manufacturing and selling war-related toys to children. Parents for Responsibility in the Toy Industry was one of the groups that formed PACT. The collection contains some material that helps us understand the efforts of the PRTI and the PACT, including the award they gave out yearly for the manufacture of nonviolent toys, as well as material by/about other related organizations.

For the most part, the material is arranged chronologically.