Toys are the most vivid objects in people's childhood memories. But what toys children play with is never arbitrary, the division of gender roles, the influence of culture, the invention of new technologies and new materials, and even the political atmosphere of an era, all affect the style and color of toys in children's hands. On International Children's Day, let's take a look back at a century of British toy classics.
Childhood fun
A century of British toy classics
◎ Courtesy photo, written / Victoria and Albert Museum Children's Branch
△ Miss Penny's Doll's House, made in 1870. The interior reflects the life of wealthy families from the late 19th to the early 20th century. Victorian toys were popular until 1914, and dollhouses were one of the more expensive and ingenious.
Toys will always be the most vivid objects in people's childhood memories. Soft fluffy toys give us the initial comfort and warmth, full of fantasy hero image to inspire our earliest courage and responsibility, children in the play to complete the adult expectations, shaping the future appearance. Toys are also a microcosm of an era, what children play is never a random move, the division of gender roles, the influence of different cultures, the invention and application of new technologies and new materials, the emergence of new media, and even the political atmosphere of an era, all participate in shaping the style and color of toys in children's hands. Look back at a century of british classic toys and recreate the childhood memories shared by people in each era.
1900〜1929：
Assemble toys, teddy bears, model trains
At the beginning of the 20th century, two new toys were popular in Britain. The first was a metal-assembled toy produced by McCanard, invented by Frank Hornby in 1899, initially to encourage his son to become interested in mechanical manufacturing. Apparently, the invention of this toy benefited from the rapid development of industrialization in the 19th century, which made educators realize the need to encourage children or young people to receive technical education from an early age.
The living room in the doll's house, made by Amy Miles in 1890. The house shows a family scene from Amy's childhood in the north of England
The second toy was the teddy bear, designed by Richard Steiff in 1902, which was also the first fluffy bear toy. The name Teddy is associated with then-U.S. President Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt. One day in 1902, the president went out to hunt bears in Mississippi, but not a single bear was found, so his staff found a young bear for the president to shoot, and the president refused. A cartoonist from the Washington Post drew this section into a comic strip, and the cartoon bear image in it became very popular, which was the original source of the famous "teddy bear".
△ Teddy bear, made from 1905 to 1910. The teddy bear is one of the fluffy toys invented in the early 20th century and still loved today. It was originally derived from the story of US President Roosevelt's attempted bear hunting.
△ Magic Quest, a classic detective decryption board game. Board games have been popular in all eras, and the most popular board games of the 1930s were "Monopoly" based on ownership relations, which is not unrelated to the economic environment of the depression of the 1930s.
1930s:
Mickey Mouse, Temple, Hero Good Man
In the early 1930s, British trade with Germany reopened. In this period of high unemployment in Britain and the Great Depression in the United States, sensitivity to money gave birth to a game based on property ownership relations, and the most successful board game in history - Monopoly. The game was introduced to the United Kingdom from the United States in 1936 and released by Parker Brothers in 1935. Parker Brothers bought the rights from charles Darrow, the self-proclaimed inventor of the game, and the 5,000 copies of the game's first release were quickly sold out, and then sold for 20,000 copies a week.
△ Mi Lao Mouse Target, 1935. With the success of the first sound cartoon film, Steamboat Willie, the Mickey Mouse character was made into a fluffy toy. This opens up the interaction between film and TELEVISION characters and toys.
△ Bayko, a assembled toy made of artificial gum. The 1930s was an era of endless use of new materials for toys, including plastics, polyester fibers and other new materials that greatly changed the face of toy production, making toy production costs lower and the types of toys that can be made more extensive.
With curly blonde hair and shiny eyes, Shulan Temple became a movie star in the 1930s. In 1932, at the age of three, Temple made a splash in his first film, Baby Wars. Between 1936 and 1938, all the films she worked on sparked a craze. At the age of 8, she had become the most successful box office guarantee in the world film market. Everyone longs for various images related to her. Who will forget the scene when she sang in "Shining Eyes"? Temple became a living doll that mothers and daughters could share, and through her, they were able to enter the dream world of young people's screen idols.
△ Xiulan Temple became the most popular movie star of the 1930s, her blonde curls, shining eyes and sweet smile, like a live-action version of a doll, leading mothers and daughters into the dreamy screen world.
1940s:
Cars and sports toys
After the war, new toy companies sprung up and the cottage industry began to grow. Lesney Products began making replicas of real cars in 1954 and selling them in small boxes under the name "matchboxes." The idea of using a matchbox as a box is said to have come from Jack O'Dell's daughter, who one day put one of the model cars in a small box, sparking curiosity and attention from friends. The idea opened up and expanded the range of car models, including the 1969 "Super Fast" model and the 1970s "Yesterday" series. In the export market, the "matchbox" was a great success. Post-war Britain set off a boom in mass sports, and any entertainment related to it was sought after.
△ Toy Airplane, 1950s. After World War II, transport and mass sports toys were popular in the UK.
1950s:
Wide application of new materials
After the end of World War II, both sides of the Atlantic called for a ban on the production of weapons toys. For centuries, boys played with a variety of weapons, and Robin Hood, Cowboys, and Indians were children's daily playmates, but these toys were banned in the 1950s. Concerns about toy safety have also prompted toy companies to rethink and design their products. The potential safety hazards of lead materials are gradually leading British toy companies to consider using plastics. Fluffy toy manufacturers are particularly careful with their products, and all imported toys and dolls need to pass hygiene and safety tests.
Motorcycle rider (Fig. 1), Train Rescue (Fig. 2), Skier (Fig. 3), Toy Car (Fig. 4 and 5), 1950s. This set of toys is made of tin leather, which is light and colorful, vivid and lively.
In Britain, where thousands of families bought televisions and watched Queen Elizabeth II's enthronement ceremony in 1953, television soon replaced radio as the main source of information for news, entertainment and promotion of children's and adult products. Donkey Muffins were the first superstar in a British children's television show.
1960s:
Fashion and sci-fi dolls of the consumer era
The two most famous classic dolls of the 1960s were Barbie and Cindy. Released in New York in 1959 by Mattel, barbie is a girl in a black-and-white striped swimsuit. Her image comes from an earlier German doll named Lily. Named Cindy in the UK, Barbie was built in 1963 by the Pedigree Doll Company, and its market positioning is "doll you like to dress up for her", and her appearance comes from the fashion world. Cindy is a modern girl who presents herself on her own commercial television station. Barbie and Cindy set off a whirlwind of toys. It's perhaps no coincidence that they were different from the cute dolls of the 1950s, which were more mature and fashionable, and the 1960s were also the popular era of Mary Quinn's miniskirts, which were all the rage on the extremely thin models Jane Shillampton and Trige.
Cindy Doll, 1975. In the 1960s, Britain recovered from war and consumption became the mainstream of the times, reflecting the emergence of a doll barbie in the field of toys based on fashion dress, and the British version of Barbie was called Cindy.
△ Soldiers of the Mobile Doll Series. In 1978. The gender orientation of dolls is still very obvious, and boys mostly use heroes and soldiers as playmates, and the mobile series dolls invented in 1964 are one of the more popular ones, which initially appear as soldiers, and gradually transform into adventurous characters with the emergence of anti-war sounds.
△ Pilot of the mobile doll series.
1970s: Lego, Monsters &
Superhero pandemic, video game birth
Despite the difficulties, the 1970s were a creative time. Manufacturers no longer rely on traditional products to attract consumers, but instead create new types of toys based on changes in popular culture, shifting focus of racial attention, and inventions of letter technology. One of them is "Mobile Man". The game was made in 1964 by Stanley Weston, who released an American soldier's version of a mobile doll in the United States and renamed it a mobileo in 1966. He was not just a soldier made of wood and tin, but a companion for the children to play with. At first, his military characteristics were obvious, but as people became averse to war, he gradually transformed into an adventurous character. In the early 1980s, his legs were designed to bend and his body became assemblable for any adventure.
△ Air Jumper, 1970s. A must-buy toy for kids in the 1970s for kids to ride up and down.
Lego playset, 1974. Introduced in the UK in the 1950s and not widely popular until the 1970s, this flexible, diverse and stable assembly structure is suitable for children of different ages to develop hands-on abilities, making it a "toy of the century".
1980s: Video games and fantasy toys
Continued to be favored, and toy collecting arose
A variety of surreal, cute fantasy figures were loved by children in the 1980s, including the Sambel family, My Little Pony, Love Bear, Wuzzles Puzzle, and the Smurfs. The Love Bear is a large, cute, gentle fluffy toy that provides comfort and warmth to children from time to time when parents are unable to take care of them; the same is true of the mixed Wuzzles puzzle, which can spell out various shapes such as animals, birds and insects for children to play with. In each set of toys, children can choose their favorite role and choose to become a certain role, so that children feel the importance of "self". Fantasy toys are probably one of the most incomprehensible toys for adults.
△ Serpentine Cube, 1980s. Invented by Eastern European interior designers, this little square sparked a frenzy of western children in the early 1980s.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, 1988. There was a lot of fantasy and surreal images in toys in the 1980s.
The 1990s and the New Century: Video Games
A thriving and nostalgic fad
In the 1980s and 1990s, sales of audio tapes, computers and video games skyrocketed. Kids were so addicted to it that they spent a lot of time on it, and by the end of the 20th century, video games accounted for more than half of all toy sales. The UK video game market is the largest in Europe, followed by the US market and the Japanese market. One of them, called Nintendo, was introduced to the United States in 1991.
Electronic Pet, 1997. In the electronic era, care toys have also changed their form and style, becoming more abstract.
△ Nintendo video game console, 1992. Video games, born in the 1970s, matured in the 1990s, capturing almost half of the toy market, raising concerns about children indulging in them.
This article is excerpted from the April 2015 issue of Civilization
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