Childhood by Design
Toys and the Material Culture of Childhood, 1700-Present
Published on 19. April 2018
Book
Hardback
352 pages
978-1-5013-3202-9 (ISBN)
Description
Informed by the analytical practices of the interdisciplinary 'material turn' and social historical studies of childhood, Childhood By Design: Toys and the Material Culture of Childhood offers new approaches to the material world of childhood and design culture for children. This volume situates toys and design culture for children within broader narratives on history, art, design and the decorative arts, where toy design has traditionally been viewed as an aberration from more serious pursuits. The essays included treat toys not merely as unproblematic reflections of socio-cultural constructions of childhood but consider how design culture actively shaped, commodified and materialized shifting discursive constellations surrounding childhood and children. Focusing on the new array of material objects designed in response to the modern 'invention' of childhood-what we might refer to as objects for a childhood by design-Childhood by Design explores dynamic tensions between theory and practice, discursive constructions and lived experience as embodied in the material culture of childhood. Contributions from and between a variety of disciplinary perspectives (including history, art history, material cultural studies, decorative arts, design history, and childhood studies) are represented - critically linking historical discourses of childhood with close study of material objects and design culture.
Chronologically, the volume spans the 18th century, which witnessed the invention of the toy as an educational plaything and a proliferation of new material artifacts designed expressly for children's use; through the 19th-century expansion of factory-based methods of toy production facilitating accuracy in miniaturization and a new vocabulary of design objects coinciding with the recognition of childhood innocence and physical separation within the household; towards the intersection of early 20th-century child-centered pedagogy and modernist approaches to nursery and furniture design; through the changing consumption and sales practices of the postwar period marketing directly to children through television, film and other digital media; and into the present, where the line between the material culture of childhood and adulthood is increasingly blurred.
Chronologically, the volume spans the 18th century, which witnessed the invention of the toy as an educational plaything and a proliferation of new material artifacts designed expressly for children's use; through the 19th-century expansion of factory-based methods of toy production facilitating accuracy in miniaturization and a new vocabulary of design objects coinciding with the recognition of childhood innocence and physical separation within the household; towards the intersection of early 20th-century child-centered pedagogy and modernist approaches to nursery and furniture design; through the changing consumption and sales practices of the postwar period marketing directly to children through television, film and other digital media; and into the present, where the line between the material culture of childhood and adulthood is increasingly blurred.
Reviews / Votes
This volume, edited by Megan Brandow-Faller, is a very welcome addition to the growing literature and the ensuing methodological renewal. * ResearchGate * Childhood by Design expands upon a common body of research that includes work by Gary Cross, Miriam Forman-Brunell, and Brian Sutton-Smith and, like their books often did, it should prove fascinating to students as well as to scholars. And, also as their work did, Childhood by Design poses some new directions in material culture studies. * American Journal of Play * A significant new addition to this area ... Childhood by Design has much to offer those interested in childhood and its physical manifestations, particularly to those with an interest in constructions of girlhood. * Cultural and Social History * Childhood by Design takes toys seriously as material embodiments of cultural and political values capable of shaping children's beliefs through play. Yet in its careful treatment of design, the volume explores not only toys' intended uses, but also imagines the ways that children might resist, adapt, and reinterpret the cultural aims that toys seek to impart. Contributions draw upon diverse material evidence from collections around the world to produce nuanced accounts of the role of design in children's toys. Ambitious in its geographical and historical scope, this rich interdisciplinary volume combines the concerns and approaches of history, art and design history, and childhood studies in an original exploration of children's material culture. -- Meredith A. Bak * Assistant Professor of Childhood Studies, Rutgers University-Camden * This sweeping collection that interpretively and imaginatively crosses fields and continents brings to light the agency of toys in "crystallizing the modern invention of childhood," and especially girlhood. The uniformly outstanding essays trace more than 400 years of significant historical figures and forces-from aesthetics and ideologies to philosophies of childhood and patterns of consumption, play to pedagogy, discourse to design, anxiety to creativity, and colonialism to appropriation-dynamically informing dolls, doll houses, books, etc. Richly illustrated with objects along with advertisements and embroidery, catalogues and scrolls, this far reaching collection, that contributes importantly to contemporary and scholarly debates, is a major contribution to material culture, visual culture, children's, and dolls studies, not to mention the history of play, toys, and girls. The innovative methodologies and theoretical frameworks of these accessibly written studies by truly interdisciplinary thinkers from across the academy, are instructional, informative, and inspirational to scholars and students alike. I love this book! -- Miriam Forman-Brunell * Professor of History, University of Missouri-Kansas City, USA, and author of Made to Play House: Dolls and the Commercialization of Girlhood (1998) and Dolls Studies: The Many Meanings of Girls' Toys and Play (2015) * [T]his book [is] important and [will] open researchers to many avenues... in a field that continues to open up to new issues. * Strenae *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Target group
College/higher education
Illustrations
42 bw illus
Dimensions
Height: 251 mm
Width: 239 mm
Thickness: 23 mm
Weight
668 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5013-3202-9 (9781501332029)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
04/2018
1st Edition
Bloomsbury Visual Arts
€39.49
Available for download
Person
Megan Brandow-Faller is Associate Professor of History at City University of New York Kingsborough, USA. She is the author of The Female Secession: Reclaiming 'Women's Art' at the Viennese Women's Academy, 1897-1938 (forthcoming).
Content
List of Illustrations
Notes on Contributors
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Materializing the History of Childhood and Children
Megan Brandow-Faller, City University of New York Kingsborough, USA
Part I: Inventing the Material Child: Childhood, Consumption and Commodity Culture
1. Training the Child Consumer: Play, Toys and Learning to Shop in 18th-Century Britain
Serena Dyer, Middlesex University, UK
2. Transitional Pandoras: Dolls in the Long 18th-Century
Ariane Fennetaux, University of Paris, Diderot, France
3. The (Play)things of Childhood: Mass Consumption and Its Critics in Belle Epoque France
Sarah Curtis, San Francisco State University, USA
4. Building Kids: LEGO and the Commodification of Creativity
Colin Fanning, Philadelphia Museum of Art, USA
Part II: Child's Play? Avant-Garde and Reform Toy Design
5. Cultivating Aesthetic Ways of Looking: Walter Crane, Flora's Feast, and the Possibilities of Children's Literature
Andrea Korda, University of Alberta, Augustana, Canada
6. The Unexpected Victory of Charakter-Puppen: Dolls, Artists, Aesthetics and Identity in Early 20th-Century Germany
Bryan Ganaway, The College of Charleston, USA
7. Work Becomes Play: Toy Design, Creative Play and Unlearning in the Bauhaus Legacy
Michelle Millar Fisher, City University of New York, USA
8. Simply Child's Play? Toys, Idealogy,and the Avant-Garde in Socialist Czechoslovakia before 1968
Cathleen Giustino, Auburn University, USA
9. Reconstructing Domestic Play: The Kaleidoscope House
Karen Stock, Winthrop University, USA and Katherine Wheeler, University of Miami, USA
Part III: Toys, Play and Design Culture as Instruments of Political and Ideological Indoctrination
10. Material Culture in Miniature: Nuremberg Kitchens as Inspirational Toys in the Long 19th Century
James E. Bryan, University of Wisconsin-Stout, USA
11. Making Paper Models in 1860s New Zealand: An Exploration of Colonial Culture Through Child-Made Objects
Lynette Townsend, Ministry for Culture and Heritage, New Zealand
12. Toys for Empire? Material Cultures of Children in Germany and German Southwest Africa, 1890 to 1918
Jakob Zollman, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin, Germany
13. Public Nostalgia and the Infantilization of the Russian Peasant: Early Soviet Reception of Folk Art Toys
Marie Gasper-Hulvat, Kent State University at Stark, USA
14. The 'Appropriate' Plaything: Searching for the New Chinese Toy, 1910-1960s
Valentina Boretti, University of London, UK
Index
Notes on Contributors
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Materializing the History of Childhood and Children
Megan Brandow-Faller, City University of New York Kingsborough, USA
Part I: Inventing the Material Child: Childhood, Consumption and Commodity Culture
1. Training the Child Consumer: Play, Toys and Learning to Shop in 18th-Century Britain
Serena Dyer, Middlesex University, UK
2. Transitional Pandoras: Dolls in the Long 18th-Century
Ariane Fennetaux, University of Paris, Diderot, France
3. The (Play)things of Childhood: Mass Consumption and Its Critics in Belle Epoque France
Sarah Curtis, San Francisco State University, USA
4. Building Kids: LEGO and the Commodification of Creativity
Colin Fanning, Philadelphia Museum of Art, USA
Part II: Child's Play? Avant-Garde and Reform Toy Design
5. Cultivating Aesthetic Ways of Looking: Walter Crane, Flora's Feast, and the Possibilities of Children's Literature
Andrea Korda, University of Alberta, Augustana, Canada
6. The Unexpected Victory of Charakter-Puppen: Dolls, Artists, Aesthetics and Identity in Early 20th-Century Germany
Bryan Ganaway, The College of Charleston, USA
7. Work Becomes Play: Toy Design, Creative Play and Unlearning in the Bauhaus Legacy
Michelle Millar Fisher, City University of New York, USA
8. Simply Child's Play? Toys, Idealogy,and the Avant-Garde in Socialist Czechoslovakia before 1968
Cathleen Giustino, Auburn University, USA
9. Reconstructing Domestic Play: The Kaleidoscope House
Karen Stock, Winthrop University, USA and Katherine Wheeler, University of Miami, USA
Part III: Toys, Play and Design Culture as Instruments of Political and Ideological Indoctrination
10. Material Culture in Miniature: Nuremberg Kitchens as Inspirational Toys in the Long 19th Century
James E. Bryan, University of Wisconsin-Stout, USA
11. Making Paper Models in 1860s New Zealand: An Exploration of Colonial Culture Through Child-Made Objects
Lynette Townsend, Ministry for Culture and Heritage, New Zealand
12. Toys for Empire? Material Cultures of Children in Germany and German Southwest Africa, 1890 to 1918
Jakob Zollman, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin, Germany
13. Public Nostalgia and the Infantilization of the Russian Peasant: Early Soviet Reception of Folk Art Toys
Marie Gasper-Hulvat, Kent State University at Stark, USA
14. The 'Appropriate' Plaything: Searching for the New Chinese Toy, 1910-1960s
Valentina Boretti, University of London, UK
Index