This board is a large,
red, oval, reversible alphabet and number board with two slots in the center
which was manufactured by Cress Educational Boards. Both sides depict animals
and children and the old lady that lived
in a shoe . One side has letters and the other numbers on blocks with
mathematical operators. Measures 13 x 9 1/2"
Educational Boards or
Tables first appeared in the US in 1840 as teaching devices for students to
move blocks with letters on tracks to assemble words or even sentences. In the
1880's, separate boards were created for spelling and for numbers to create
simple math problems. From 1912 to 1917 childhood friends John H. Fox and
Horatio G. Cress patented educational boards that combined letters on one side
and numbers on the other side. Popularly called speller/number boards,
letter/counting boards, and alphabet boards, they were made of fiberboard,
metal, combinations of slate and wood, and later plywood, heavy cardboard, or
plastic.
In 1903 John H. Fox
(1859-1933) founded Fox Novelty Company in Berea, Ohio. His childhood friend
Horatio Gates Cress (1859-1943) was a teacher, with experience in rural and
district schools. Together they worked on inventing and improving spelling
boards with their names on the 2 early patents from 1912 and 1915. After a 1916
factory fire at Fox, Cress moved to Troy, Ohio and opened his own toy company,
H. G. Cress Company or Cressco. Cressco and to a lesser extent Foxy Toys
expanded styles with additional patents and became competitors. Cress received
4 additional patents in 1923, 1924, 1925, and 1926. They created limited
edition boards in Hebrew and Armenian and continued to expand their line with a
variety of shapes and materials. These educational toys were endorsed as safe
by Good Housekeeping and Child Life. After Cressco’s warehouse had a fire in
1940 their manufacturing rights were purchased by Richmond School Furniture
Company who continued to produced their designs under the Richmond label until
about 1961.