Richard Thompson James (1914–1974) was a naval engineer. He and his wife, Betty were the inventors of the Slinky in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the early 1940s. Mr. James graduated from Westtown School, a Quaker boarding school located in Chester County, PA, in 1935. He graduated in 1939 with a degree in Mechanical Engineering from The Pennsylvania State University. In 1943, Richard James was a naval engineer trying to develop a meter designed to monitor horsepower on naval battleships. Richard James was trying to develop a means for suspending sensitive shipboard instruments aboard naval vessels, even in rough seas. He was working with tension springs, when he accidentally dropped one. Seeing how the spring kept moving after it hit the ground, an idea for a toy was born. With a US$500 loan, Richard James developed a coil winding machine and started the James Spring & Wire Company to mass-produce the Slinky. The name for the toy was coined by Betty James. Slinky was successfully demonstrated at Gimbels Department Store in Philadelphia during the 1945 Christmas season and then at the 1946 American Toy Fair.