The story of an eighteen-year-old Holyoke High School student who pursued a lifelong career path in developing electronic games certainly captured my attention. It's indeed time to tell the story of James "Jim" Prentice, inventor, patent holder, entrepreneur, and later president and treasurer of Holyoke's Electric Game Company.
James Mason Prentice was born in Holyoke on May 29, 1909. He was the son of George M. and Alice (Dougherty) Prentice, who resided at 4 Ferguson Place, a Chestnut Street tenement building located behind the former Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church. His parents were both born in Holyoke. The 1920 U.S. Census revealed that the family was living at 50 Lawler Street.
While he was attending Holyoke High School at the age of 17, he sketched plans during a study hall held in Room 53. He submitted a patent application for a new electric baseball game. In late 1928, the U. S. Patent Office awarded James Prentice the patent. Parker Brothers, the famous Salem-based toy and game manufacturer, was quite impressed, stating that "it was one of the cleverest cross switches ever produced." The original game was about one foot square and tested at several prep schools. By pressing a series of buttons, competing players could plan a sequence of moves in secret to outmaneuver their opponent. Success or failure was shown by a series of colored lights.
The electric baseball game was featured in Macy's Department Store advertisements.
In 1930, James Prentice developed and invented the electric football game while on his breaks from the University of New Hampshire. The product was produced at the L. D. VanValkenberg factory in Willimansett and widely distributed under the business's name, Electric Game Company.
The business established its manufacturing facility in 1933 at 179 High Street. At its inception, the company was producing 5 games daily for shipping in its one-room setting. By the end of 1934, having expanded to five rooms at this address, the company hired 2 assistants and was shipping 25 games daily. Each game had 150 parts and 62 electrical contacts, so production at the time was labor-intensive.
Three different games were being produced; the most in demand was the original electric baseball game, with additional games including electric football and golf.
Demand for the games was arriving from all 48 states. Interestingly, the enterprise's location was the Dougherty block at 177-179 High Street, constructed around 1885 by James Prentice's grandfather, James Dougherty.
On June 5, 1934, the Electric Game Company was organized as a corporation. Needing additional production space, the company relocated to the third floor of the White & Wyckoff building. Soon after, in 1938, the company again moved to even larger quarters in the former Norman Paper Company building, which was owned by the Holyoke Water Power Company. The company then had 3,000 square feet of factory space.
In June 1938, the youngsters of the Holyoke Y.M.C.A. and the Holyoke Boys Club competed in the electric baseball game held in the display window of Walker's Sporting Goods on High Street. The winning team would receive a free game for its organization.
In 1938, business had tripled, and the number of employees had increased from 12 to 20. The 1939 Christmas season production started in April, four months earlier than prior years, as orders continued to surge. The plant was operating at full capacity.
Still needing additional space, the company relocated from 19 Appleton Street to the Holyoke Gas & Electric building on Canal Street in June 1939, which was just over a year after its last move. The company quadrupled its plant space to 12,000 square feet. The company expected that its production would soon double once it released an electric auto racing game. Employment would increase to about 35 to 40 workers.
The New England Council of Economic Development and Research invited James Prentice to be a speaker at its 55th quarterly convention in York Harbor, Maine, in 1939. As this was scheduled during the company's relocation, he was unsure of his attendance. The council was seeking young speakers who had weathered the 1929 crash and persevered in starting and operating businesses during challenging economic times.
This would provide the company with exposure to a broad audience. Mr. Prentice did attend the conference, and the business was settled into its new plant in a timely manner.
Here are some statistics of the company's sales of its 27 game products:
1936- 2,000 games
1937- 5,000 games
1938- 35,000 games
Newspapers.com (paid subscription): Citations: Holyoke (Massachusetts) Transcript & Transcript-Telegram; Springfield (Massachusetts) Republican; publication dates and pages are shown.
Ancestry.com (paid subscription); Census and Birth records
Ancestry.com (paid subscription); Price & Lee, City of Holyoke (Massachusetts) Directories
Massachusetts Cultural Research and Information System, Boston, Massachusetts
Massachusetts Secretary of State's Office, Corporations Division, Boston, Massachusetts.
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