Playhouse of Straw (Peter Stackpole on LIFE Magazine – June 1956)

This very short article about a children building construction kit made of drinking straws, was illustrated by the photographs of Peter Stackpole and appeared on LIFE Magazine’s June, 25th. 1956 issue.

The text read:

This house, five and a half feet tall, was put together by an 8 year-old boy using ordinary drinking straws and joints that come in a new children’s construction kit. The kit, called “Fiddlestraws” was invented as a pastime by Charles Luchsinger, a cartoonist, when he was hospitalized with a slipped spinal disc. With it young children can make simple block, letters or tiny houses like that at right (above). Older ones try more ambitious building projects like rocket ships and Ferris wheels, shown on the next page. They use 14 kinds of joints, of plastic or metal, including couplers, wheels and axle holders. The construction kit, which has a booklet picturing 20 “how-to-do-it” toy patterns, comes in two sizes, $1 and $2, and will be available in stores at the end of the month.