In the early 1930s, East Aurora was a quiet town in western New York State. Everyone knew each other. In this village of wooden houses, Herman Fisher had a peculiar habit: he went door to door with a bag full of toy prototypes. He would greet the neighbors, ask to be let into the dining rooms of families with children for a moment, place the toys on the floor, and silently watch as the children dragged them, rolled them, or pulled their strings. If a toy sparked interest, he made a note of it; if it didn't work, he picked it up and returned to the workshop to adjust it. For Fisher, this almost empirical process was the only way to create toys that actually worked. While Fisher worked on the prototypes, Irving Price did calculations, sought funding, and leveraged business contacts. He was a respected man in the town: he had been mayor and had made a career at Woolworth, one of the key retail chains in the United States in the last century. He knew what he could sell, how to present it, and who to get it to. Beside him, his wife, illustrator Margaret Evans Price, transformed the toy prototypes into charming characters and animals, giving the project an appealing visual identity. While Fisher refined the game, the Prices built the structure that would make it possible for it to become one of the most important companies in the history of the global toy industry.