The founder of Lionel trains, was born in 1877 to a Jewish immigrant family. His name was Joshua Lionel Cowen. With his family, Lionel landed in New York after the Civil War. It was in the midst of major changes in the world, namely the industrial revolution that Lionel Cowen began his life in America. Edison had just created the electric light and trains signaled the progress of change. The west and east were finally connected in America via the Central and Union Pacific railroads, this led to a sense of expansion, optimism and exciting possibilities for some. Given the context of his formative years during the westward expansion and the industrial revolution, it’s quite fitting that Cowen would grow up to build and invent. He is credited with inventing the flashlight and just before the turn of the century, this college drop-out received his first patent for an instrument that was used to light the flash of a camera.

 

Before the age of ten, it was said that Cowen had created his first working model trains. One of his earliest creations was a small actual working steam engine carved out of wood. This early steam locomotive experiment unfortunately exploded, damaging his parents kitchen Even with this early set-back, his creativity was not quenched and went on to found the Lionel Corporation in 1900. This was the time when passenger rail travel was fascinating and cutting edge. Both children and adults alike marveled at it’s technology.

 

The initial train made by what would soon become Lionel Corporation was designed to be a store display prop to help showcase featured items. It was a gondola train called the electric express. As a flat gondola train carrying featured merchandise around circular track in a store display window, the Electric Express simultaneously succeeded and failed. It failed to highlight featured items in the gondola, this was because it succeeded in creating so much interest that customers would want to buy the fascinating new electric train. Lionel Cowen saw this and changed the direction of the Lionel Corporation to what we know it to be today, creating model trains.

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