Artemis Yagou

Construction Toys and Modern European Culture (eBook, ePUB)

Education, Politics, and Technology, 1830 to 1940

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

This innovative take on construction toys explores the development and use of building-inspired playthings between 1830 and 1940 as they became the educational toys par excellence for industrialised and industrialising societies in Europe and elsewhere.

Playful and instructive at the same time, and sitting at the intersection of leisure, learning, and technology, construction toys exemplified directed, purposeful play. Both commercially oriented and avant-garde producers attempted to shape children through these objects by instilling a range of skills, particularly patience, discipline, and a sense of order. By acquiring and employing such toys for their children, middle-class families attempted to come to terms with the contradictions of modernity, the demands of new technologies, and the fear resulting from their relentless advance. This book uses objects from museum collections and rich textual sources as a starting point for examining these themes, with special emphasis on neglected or controversial areas such as political and nationalist aspects of play, negative emotions during play, and the perspective of children.

Since play is the core subject, this book will appeal to very broad specialist and non-specialist audiences.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Taylor & Francis eBooks
• Seitenzahl: 240
• Erscheinungstermin: 8. Dezember 2025
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781040691434
• Artikelnr.: 76005890

Autorenporträt

Artemis Yagou, Ph.D., is a historian of design and technology, affiliated with the Research Institute of the Deutsches Museum (Munich). Her main interests are the cultural history of technology, digital humanities, construction toys, horology, and Greek material culture. Her numerous publications include Products, Users, and Popular Luxury in Early Modern Greece (2024).

Inhaltsangabe

Introduction 1. Origins and themes: Leisure, learning, technology 2. The
form of toys: Following the Zeitgeist 3. Crucial knowledge: New skills
through technical play 4. Building the future: The child as model citizen
5. Toys as national politics: Power and pride 6. The other side of play:
Technology and fear 7. Utopian play: Modernity in miniature 8. How did they
play?: The elusive question. Conclusion