How did teddies get their name? When were yo-yos first made? What were the Teletubbies? From toy cars to Barbies, Rubik's cubes to Fortnite, the toys children play with have changed a lot over the past century. But some of the toys that your grandparents played with in their youth may not be that different to the ones you play with now! Find out all about the history of toys, what has changed and what hasn't, and what children have loved to play with through the decades.
An illustrated chronicle of toy history includes coverage of objects that have remained popular throughout the ages whose designs have been shaped by progressive technologies, new materials, and the advent of mass production.
Takes the reader on a chronological & nostalgic journey through 20th-cent. Brit. toy mfg. Pre-WW1, Frank Hornby's system of ÔMechanics Made Easy' -- a tin box full of nuts, bolts & flexible strips of metal, had young boys attempting to build models of the Eiffel tower. In the 1920s, kids zoomed around in handcarts & scooters. The 1930s saw jigsaw puzzles & playing Escalado, Ôthe racecourse on a table'. The 1950s & 1960s saw battery-powered toys, street marbles, & Airfix kits. The 1970s belonged to Subbuteo, Mastermind, & Lego, & the 1980s to Space Invaders, Cabbage Patch Dolls & PlayStation 2. The present day is made up of Pokemon cards & media fueled crazes. A witty & irreverent cultural history with an eye for hidden, obscure detail. Illustrated.
How did teddies get their name? When were yo-yos first made? What were the Teletubbies? From toy cars to Barbies, Rubik's cubes to Fortnite, the toys children play with have changed a lot over the past century. But some of the toys that your grandparents played with in their youth may not be that different to the ones you play with now! Find out all about the history of toys, what has changed and what hasn't, and what children have loved to play with through the decades.
A fascinating collection of classic country toys. In Classic Country Toys, Bruce Wexler takes us all on a trip down memory lane, and beyond, by providing an illustrated history of playthings with a country theme from 1880 to the present day. Here in clear, detailed color photographs are over 150 important landmark toys of all kinds—from Marx farm trucks, Buddy-L fire trucks, Tonka pickups, Howdy Doody dolls, Cabbage Patch Kids, Red Ryder BB guns, Fanner cap pistols, Tootsietoy cars, and Woodhaven and Ertl farm machinery through to modern classics like Dukes of Hazzard action figures and Woody from Toy Story. Through professional photography, each toy is featured in close-up detail to highlight its most special qualities, including the inventive ways the toys' young owners used them. All toys, from the collection of the World's Largest Toy Museum in Branson, Missouri, are guaranteed to help us recapture a cherished piece of childhood. At once a tribute to America's rural roots and a joyful reminder of how much one doll or toy can matter, this fascinating illustrated history will warm the hearts of toy-lovers young and old.
Nicholas Whittaker's Toys Were Us is an analysis of the world of toys. Unashamedly nostalgic in parts, Whittaker rolls back the years and lovingly examines the detail of many lost, forgotten, or just plain old toys. Provisionally broken down into subjects and themes -- from 'having wheels' (pedal cars, roller skates) to 'war' (toy soldiers, airfix kits), etc -- the book is a chronology but also tackles many contemporary issues such as media-fuelled crazes, controversial violations of safety regulations, how Britain has lost its hold on the toy market and the ever-increasing commercialisation of toys. This is a hitherto unwritten cultural history, full of Whittaker's characteristic wit, irreverence and eye for hidden, obscure detail.
Traces the changes in the way Americans have amused themselves and the growth of leisure time from colonial times to the present, and describes the technological and social developments behind these differences.
