Children's toys

Magazine Antiques, Jan, 2005 by Amy A. Weinstein

Appealing to the imagination of children of all ages, the toy collection of the New-York Historical Society offers a miniature window into nineteenth-century American family life. The approximately three thousand objects that constitute the collection are made of wood, metal, paper, ceramic, and cloth and trace the social, economic, political, and military history of the nation. The collection documents how new toys were created in response to great events and as new materials and technologies were adapted by the European and American toy industries. (1) Although the collection most clearly illuminates the leisure pursuits of wealthy and middle-class children, simpler versions of expensive toys made it possible for children living in less privileged circumstances to own toys of their own.

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The growing presence of toys in the United States was in part an outgrowth of the emerging recognition of childhood as a special phase of life, separate from adulthood. Rules governed when and how children might play with their toys, with many families enforcing a ban on Sunday play. With its obvious biblical theme, the Noah's ark (see Pl. VI) became a joyful exception to this policy. Created almost exclusively in households and small workshops in German villages surrounded by dense forests that provided the raw materials, Noah's arks came in many sizes; smaller, cheaper models might include just a few pairs of animals, while more substantial examples, like the one illustrated, with painted motifs ornamenting the bow and roofline, often featured Noah's entire family and great zoological diversity, both real and imaginary. (2)

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A connection between play and life's lessons also helped popularize toy savings banks. Although decorative banks had been made for many years, cast-iron banks became especially popular in the United States in the second half of the nineteenth century, when post-Civil War weapons production was diverted to this more benign purpose. In addition to many cast-iron banks, the society's collection also includes banks made of other metals, ceramic, and wood. Ostensibly sold to encourage children to learn the value of thrift, banks in the shapes of playful animals, from the traditional pig to circus creatures, bank vaults, and buildings, including iconic American structures such as Independence Hall and the Statue of Liberty, (3) proved highly entertaining as well as instructive (see Pl. VIII). In an era before moving images became commonplace, mechanical banks had tiny hidden figures that popped up or slid out with a tug on a string and disappeared again with each coin deposit, providing added amusement. A coin placed in the mouth of the American eagle (Pl. VIII, far right), for instance, drops toward her nesting brood of two eaglets when a serpentine lever hidden beneath her tail feathers is depressed. Reminding children of the need to be vigilant in protecting themselves as well as their savings, a fox, improbably situated in the aerie, peers out from amid the foliage.

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Headline news and a fascination with celebrity also played a role in shaping the production of banks and other toys. When the "Swedish Nightingale" Jenny Lind (1820-1887) enthralled audiences throughout the world with her beautiful soprano voice, a younger generation could dress a paper doll in replicas of the costumes she wore on stage. Printed inside the box in which the society's Jenny Lind paper doll was sold is a list of the roles she performed, enabling the musically literate child to dress her doll appropriately. The corruption trial of William Marcy "Boss" Tweed (1823-1878) in January 1873 was soon followed by the manufacture and sale of the Tammany bank (p. 181, Pl. XIII), a caricature of the Democratic Party leader who politely "pocketed" the pennies placed in his hand. With cries of "Remember the Maine" arousing patriotic fervor, children could save their pennies in a tiny version of the battleship whose sinking in 1898 touched off the Spanish American War (see Pl. VIII, second from right). Board and card games encouraged children to follow the distant land and sea battles that ensued, and thrifty children could drop their pennies into a cast-iron likeness of Lieutenant Colonel Theodore Roosevelt clad in his Rough Riders uniform. (4)

The world of adults, both workday and recreational, often found expression in toys. A nineteenth-century child pulling a wheeled American Express Company delivery wagon (Pl. V) loaded with burlap sacks and wooden barrels and crates might have envisioned himself guiding its team of horses along country roads and city streets. It is easy to imagine driver and cargo spilling out onto the nursery floor as children mimicked the speed of the new express companies racing to be the fastest to deliver cargo across the nation. The lucky young pilot of imaginary steam-powered trips up and down the nation's great rivers aboard the tinned sheet-iron riverboat Excelsior (Pl. X) had to be careful to keep his boat on dry land to prevent its wheels from rusting. The four-decked toy boat, sharing its enthusiastic name with the motto of New York State, meaning "ever upward," reflects the growing national importance of steamboat travel for commerce and pleasure. The Excelsior's fanciful decoration and charming lack of adherence to scale underscore its dual significance at the society. It is not only an important example of the metal toys manufactured by the renowned George W. Brown and Company of Forestville, Connecticut, but it also captured the imagination of the modernist sculptor and pioneering folk art collector Elie Nadelman, who sold his collection to the society in 1937. (5)