Cavalcade of Toys
Author : Ruth Sunderlin Freeman
Publisher :
Page : 408 pages
File Size : 47,69 MB
Release : 1942
Category : Toys
ISBN :
Author : Ruth Sunderlin Freeman
Publisher :
Page : 408 pages
File Size : 47,69 MB
Release : 1942
Category : Toys
ISBN :
Author : Ruth Sunderlin Freeman
Publisher :
Page : 380 pages
File Size : 20,13 MB
Release : 1978
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
ISBN : 9780872820012
Author : Gary Cross
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 338 pages
File Size : 16,23 MB
Release : 1999-11-15
Category : Education
ISBN : 9780674030077
To sort out who's who and what's what in the enchanting, vexing world of Barbies(R) and Ninja Turtles(R), Tinkertoys(R) and teddy bears, is to begin to see what's become of childhood in America. It is this changing world, and what it unveils about our values, that Gary Cross explores in Kids' Stuff, a revealing look into the meaning of American toys through this century. Early in the 1900s toys reflected parents' ideas about children and their futures. Erector sets introduced boys to a realm of business and technology, while baby dolls anticipated motherhood and building blocks honed the fine motor skills of the youngest children. Kids' Stuff chronicles the transformation that occurred as the interests and intentions of parents, children, and the toy industry gradually diverged--starting in the 1930s when toymakers, marketing playthings inspired by popular favorites like Shirley Temple and Buck Rogers, began to appeal directly to the young. TV advertising, blockbuster films like Star Wars(R), and Saturday morning cartoons exploited their youthful audience in new and audacious ways. Meanwhile, powerful social and economic forces were transforming the nature of play in American society. Cross offers a richly textured account of a culture in which erector sets and baby dolls are no longer alone in preparing children for the future, and in which the toys that now crowd the racks are as perplexing for parents as they are beguiling for little boys and girls. Whether we want our children to be high achievers in a competitive world or playful and free from the worries of adult life, the toy store confronts us with many choices. What does the endless array of action figures and fashion dolls mean? Are children--or parents--the dupes of the film, television, and toy industries, with their latest fads and fantasies? What does this say about our time, and what does it bode for our future? Tapping a vein of rich cultural history, Kids' Stuff exposes the serious business behind a century of playthings.
Author :
Publisher :
Page : 44 pages
File Size : 26,57 MB
Release : 1966*
Category : Dolls
ISBN :
Author : Leslie H. Daiken
Publisher :
Page : 234 pages
File Size : 30,70 MB
Release : 1953
Category : Children's paraphernalia
ISBN :
Author : Tim Fish
Publisher :
Page : 564 pages
File Size : 39,35 MB
Release : 2006
Category : Comic books, strips, etc
ISBN :
Author : Karal Ann Marling
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 470 pages
File Size : 24,59 MB
Release : 2009-06-30
Category : History
ISBN : 9780674040625
It wouldn't be Christmas without the "things." How they came to mean so much, and to play such a prominent role in America's central holiday, is the tale told in this delightful and edifying book. In a style characteristically engaging and erudite, Karal Ann Marling, one of our most trenchant observers of American culture, describes the outsize spectacle that Christmas has become.
Author : Gary Cross
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 268 pages
File Size : 40,52 MB
Release : 2004-04-01
Category : History
ISBN : 0190288868
The twentieth century was, by any reckoning, the age of the child in America. Today, we pay homage at the altar of childhood, heaping endless goods on the young, reveling in memories of a more innocent time, and finding solace in the softly backlit memories of our earliest years. We are, the proclamation goes, just big kids at heart. And, accordingly, we delight in prolonging and inflating the childhood experiences of our offspring. In images of the naughty but nice Buster Brown and the coquettish but sweet Shirley Temple, Americans at mid-century offered up a fantastic world of treats, toys, and stories, creating a new image of the child as "cute." Holidays such as Christmas and Halloween became blockbuster affairs, vehicles to fuel the bedazzled and wondrous innocence of the adorable child. All this, Gary Cross illustrates, reflected the preoccupations of a more gentle and affluent culture, but it also served to liberate adults from their rational and often tedious worlds of work and responsibility. But trouble soon entered paradise. The "cute" turned into "cool" as children, following their parental example, embraced the gift of fantasy and unrestrained desire to rebel against the saccharine excesses of wondrous innocence in deliberate pursuit of the anti-cute. Movies, comic books, and video games beckoned to children with the allures of an often violent, sexualized, and increasingly harsh worldview. Unwitting and resistant accomplices to this commercial transformation of childhood, adults sought-over and over again, in repeated and predictable cycles-to rein in these threats in a largely futile jeremiad to preserve the old order. Thus, the cute child-deliberately manufactured and cultivated--has ironically fostered a profoundly troubled ambivalence toward youth and child rearing today. Expertly weaving his way through the cultural artifacts, commercial currents, and parenting anxieties of the previous century, Gary Cross offers a vibrant and entirely fresh portrait of the forces that have defined American childhood.
Author : Lois R. Kuznets
Publisher : Yale University Press
Page : 280 pages
File Size : 29,44 MB
Release : 1994-01-01
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9780300056457
In this work the author studies the role of toy characters in works ranging from older classics such as Pinocchio and Winnie the Pooh to modern texts such as The Mouse and his Child and the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes science fiction with robots and cyborgs.
Author : DC Comics, Inc
Publisher :
Page : 284 pages
File Size : 12,95 MB
Release : 2005
Category : Comics & Graphic Novels
ISBN :
From Comics' Golden Age, a collection of one of comics' premier anthology titles! Never before have these comics been reprinted, making this volume a must-have for all collectors. Featured within are stories of Wonder Woman, The Flash, Green Lantern, Wildcat, Black Pirate, Ghost Patrol and many more! Included in this volume is an introduction by movie producer Michael Uslan (Batman films).