There is something about Silly Putty that fascinates the human mind. However, not many people know that Silly Putty was never intended to be a children’s toy.

During World War II, Japan invaded Indochina, which was a major exporter of natural rubber. This put a damper on United States war efforts as rubber was a crucial material needed in truck tires, boots, life rafts, gas masks and bombers. However, at that time synthetic rubber was too expensive to make, so the government’s War Production Effort called on the American industry to attempt to create a cheap rubber compound.

Then in 1943, James Wright, a Scottish engineer working at General Electric in New Haven, CT, combined boric acid and silicone oil and created a gooey substance. After conducting a variety of tests, Wright discovered that the substance could be stretched, molded and bounced. The more pressure applied to Silly Putty the more it acted like a solid. Although it had a variety of fascinating properties, Silly Putty could not replace rubber and had no other practical use.

In 1949, the substance was rediscovered by Ruth Fallgatter, who owned a toy store. She packaged the goo in plastic cases and sold them for two dollars each. Silly Putty did fairly well and was later discovered by Peter Hodgson, who was in debt. He saw Silly Putty as an opportunity and bought a large quantity of putty. With the help of some Yale students, he packaged them in plastic eggs. Hodgson managed to get his product stocked at Nieman Marcus and Doubleday stores. A journalist for The New Yorker found Silly Putty and wrote an article for the paper. Orders started coming in and over the last 50 years the production of Silly Putty has grown to a large scale with over 20,000 eggs manufactured each day.

What had started as a quest to find a synthetic rubber resulted in the production of one of the most classic toys of all time.