Edward Imeson Horsman (usually referred to as E. I. Horsman, EIH, or as Horsman Sr.) founded a retail company in New York City in 1865 selling products made by other companies. In its earliest years, Horsman sold a wide range of products from croquet to cameras and kites. The company is best known for its dolls, but in the 1890, came out with several innovative varieties of the game of tiddlywinks, which was spelled tiddledy winks back then. The Horsman company focused solely on dolls starting in the 1910s.
Horsman Sr. was born on 25 November 1843 in Brooklyn, New York. His son, E. I. Horsman Jr., was born on 18 February 1873 and joined his father’s company as a teenager. At the age of 17, EIH Jr. was granted a patent on 9 December 1890 for a tennis version of tiddlywinks, sold as Horsman’s Tiddledy Wink Tennis and Tiddledy Winks Combined, which was also trademarked and copyrighted.