The wooden toys in this collection were designed and made by Mr. Homer Pittman McNeil in the basement workshop of his residence at 1222 Burnett Avenue, Ames, Iowa.  The majority of the toys were made for his only son, Donald Homer (born in 1941).  They were presented as gifts for Christmas holidays and for birthdays from 1942 through 1946 when manufactured toys could not be purchased due to shortages, rationing, and other restrictions during World War II.

Materials for these toys included various household scraps of wire and wood.  Dowel rods, the ubiquitous wooden “peach crates” of that era, and small wooden cheese boxes from Wisconsin were used.  Also found on the toys were many steel typewriter ribbon spools and wooden accounting tape spools gleaned from the Ames Trust & Savings Bank where Homer McNeil was Cashier.

Underneath the aluminum paint may be faintly detected the ultimate proof of the construction material: “Windsor pasteurized process cheese, Manitowoc, Wisconsin.”

The scale of the toys – approximately 1:30 – was chosen for convenience in construction and to fit the sizes of the materials available, especially the typewriter ribbon spools which served as wheels.  The scale was also, perhaps, thought to fit the handling by a young child from age 1 through 5.  The toys were used as objects for set pieces of childhood imagination and were trundled about indoors on occasion but were never taken out-of-doors or otherwise abused and absolutely were never allowed into the rough hands of any playmates.

It is unlikely that any plans were every drawn for any of the model; if so, they were scrapped or lost long since.  Homer McNeil had a steady hand for drawing and a compulsion to make lists and notes, but he preferred to do his shop work through improvisation and imagination: “by guess and by gosh.”  Ideas for subject matter came, first and foremost, from live subject matter in Ames.

Secondarily, images were derived from those in Life and Popular Science magazines, the two principal periodicals in the McNeil household.  The wooden toys therefore represent visual impressions from a long lost time and place.