Children's Games
Posted by P. Bingham on April 07, 1998 at 15:31:16:
I stumbled on this little bit about Children's things whilst looking for "breast-feeding." This is in The Family, Sex & Marriage by Lawrence Stone. It brought to mind a previous post of Caroline's which featured a wonderful jigsaw puzzle that seemed to be the surprise of everyone. And Marie Bernadette! You have this book too! How could you miss this! Alas, though I did know they had jigsaws, I missed this particular place too! Anyway, these passages offer some helpful dates that I thought someone might appreciate.
"By 1800 there was a large range of children's books, costing between a penny and sixpence, and therefore accessible to the humlest artisan who wished to indulge his children.
Educational games that combines instruction with fun were also introduced in the mid 18th century, geographical jigsaws in 1762 and a geographical or travel game played with dice in 1759. This was the time when toy-shops were springing up in provincial towns, and were doing a brisk trade selling toys that were designed merely to give pleasure to the individual child, not to gratify its parents' desire for moral or educational improvement. It was now that dolls with changeable clothing an dolls' houses were first mass-produced for the comercial market. The commercialization of the supply of goods specially designed for children was obviously only made possible by social and economic developements which created a larger upper and lower-middle -class market of parents with money to buy such relative luxuries in quanitity for their children. As today, status competition undoubtedly played its part in stimulating demand. But what is important is that large numbers of parents were now willing to pamper their children by buying them these frivolous toys and books. England was clearly moving towards a child-oriented family type.
Patricia
- A Puzzling Oversight Marie Bernadette 17:40:58 4/07/98
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- thank you, thank you, thank you!!! P. Bingham 20:00:12 4/07/98
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- thank you, thank you, thank you!!! P. Bingham 20:00:12 4/07/98
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