ABSTRACT
After a generation of slow, albeit steady, growth, the Frisbee ascended to superstar status in the 1970s. Perhaps best described as a plastic discus or flying saucer-like object with its outer edge curled under, the Frisbee's ancestry can be traced back with some surety to the late Victorian era, when Yale college students found that tossing the pie tins of an area bakery–the Frisbie Pie Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut, founded in 1871–offered a modicum of recreational enjoyment. Then, in 1947, two Californians, Fred Morrison and Warren Francioni, constructed a flying disk from plastic. The name–already in use among some aficionados from the start–was eventually copyrighted by the Wham-0 Manufacturing Company of San Gabriel, California (misspelling and all; other companies have had to provide their disks with other names).
