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Childhood & Toys
Since the early 20th century, the Smithsonian Institution has collected toys to give insights into American childhood.
Toys suggest how children were educated and how they enjoyed leisure activities. They also indicate how children were prepared for their future social, career, and gender roles, and the position of young consumers in the marketplace. And toys can reflect the commonplace aspects of everyday life that, with time, are often forgotten. While these toys look old fashioned today, when new they were the most recent and fashionable models, made with the most up-to-date technological innovations.
These toys are from a collection of over 1,400 cast-iron and tinplate toys, dating from the 1870s to the 1950s. |