Lynn Pressman Raymond

Lynn Pressman Raymond (c. 1912 – July 22, 2009) was an American business executive who joined her husband Jack Pressman in developing and growing the Pressman Toy Corporation, and was an innovator in creating and licensing toys based on hit television programs and professional athletes in her two decades as president of the firm following her husband's death in 1959.

She was born in Woodhaven, Queens as Lynn Rambach, and grew up in Brooklyn, where she graduated from Erasmus Hall High School. Starting as a secretary at Abraham & Straus after completing high school, where she moved up the ladder to higher posts in advertising and training. She moved to McCreery's department store on Fifth Avenue where she moved up to a senior merchandising post. At McCreery's she set up promotional stunts that included having an employee dressed in an usher's uniform carry in with great fanfare to a fashion show a series of empty hat boxes that were said to contain the latest fashions fresh from Paris.

Her second marriage was to "Marble King" Jack Pressman in 1942, who had founded the predecessor company in 1922 and had built the business up on the success of his acquisition of the rights to the game Chinese checkers in 1928 which became a nationwide bestseller and was still a mainstay for decades. In the late 1940s he dissolved his partnership with his original partner, and appointed Lynn as vice president of the business her husband reestablished as Pressman Toy Company after she succeeded in convincing her husband to bring her into the business.

Seeing the anxiety of her children on visits to the doctor due to ill health or for vaccinations, she created the Doctor Bag in 1956—which included a stethoscope, syringe and other pretend medical supplies—to help kids deal with their fears. A Nurse Bag followed shortly thereafter, and this was extended with a Ken Doctor Bag and a Barbie Nurse Bag licensed in 1962. With the rise of The Mickey Mouse Club, first broadcast in 1955, a series of toys were licensed from the Walt Disney Company, including Mouskatennis table tennis, a Mickey Mouse Counting Jump Rope and Fun Tray, a board game based on the Davy Crockett television series and other toys inspired by Disney. Other games featured tie-ins to the Lone Ranger and Superman.

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