Playthings

Abstract: In Designing the Creative Child: Playthings and Places in Midcentury America, Amy F. Ogata shows how a cultural preoccupation with childhood creativity left its mark on American material life. While the idea of the child as naturally creative first emerged in the eighteenth century and grew steadily during the nineteenth, it was only in the twentieth century that it took root across America. The belief that children were naturally creative, and that their creative sensibilities could be further nurtured and expanded by exposing them to stimulating environments and objects spread rapidly during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, particularly among middleand upper-class Americans. Ogata explains that childhood creativity became a subject of pervasive concern because of social tensions related Book Reviews

Abstract: Decades ago, Rheingold and Cook (1975) observed marked gender-typing of preschool children’s playthings and room furnishings. Our purpose was to determine whether this form of implicit gender socialization has been altered by cultural shifts toward more egalitarian attitudes. We also examined potential predictors of children’s room contents, including parents’ self-perceived gender-stereotypical personality traits (i.e., expressivity and instrumentality), sibling composition, and preschool experience as a proxy for exposure to peer pressure to conform to gender norms. In-depth cataloging of 75 U.S. preschoolers’ room contents (n = 39 girls) found significant gender differences that were consistent with the gender-typing documented decades ago. Multilevel modeling showed parents’ expressivity and instrumentality largely to be unrelated to their child’s gender-typed playthings. Also, children in families with same-gender siblings, and girls who had spent more time in preschool, had more gender-typed playthings. Thus, the gender-typing of children’s playthings is attributable to multiple pathways, although familial contributors were minimal in our study. We discuss implications for toy advertising and how parents can be astute consumers, as well as strategies to create gender-neutral preschool classrooms and home environments.

Abstract: Educational toys, objects intended to teach skill or develop abilities, became a common feature of postwar childhood. With the rise of the American birthrate after World War II, toymakers exploited the newly prosperous middle‐class market and promoted educational toys as fundamental equipment for raising baby‐boom children. The major American toymakers, including Holgate, Playskool, and Creative Playthings, as well as architects, designers, and even art museums, promised to develop a child's creativity and imagination through the manipulation of specially designed objects. The elevation of creativity in the promotion of toys developed along with discourses on psychology, education, and art.