Toys long ago
History · Early Years · The School
What is different
Toys from long ago look different from yours. Many were made of WOOD. Some were made of METAL. Some were made of CLOTH. Plastic had not been invented yet. Almost none of them had batteries. None had lights or sounds. A rocking horse. A spinning top. A hoop and stick. A rag doll. Marbles. These are all very old toys.
What is the same
Some things have not changed at all. Children have always had dolls and teddies. They have always had balls to throw. They have always had things with wheels to push. A ball from a hundred years ago does the same job as a ball today. Noticing what STAYED THE SAME is just as much history as noticing what changed.
How we know
How do we know about old toys? Some of them survived. They are in museums. They are in attics. They are kept in families. We also have photographs. We have paintings. We have stories from the time. When you look at a toy in a museum, you are looking at real evidence. It is not just a picture of the past.
A Victorian spinning top sits in a museum. How do we know children played with it? There are three kinds of evidence. The OBJECT is worn at the point, so it was used. A PHOTOGRAPH from 1890 shows children with tops in a street. A WRITTEN account in a diary tells of a boy's top breaking. Object, picture and writing all together. That is how a historian answers a question. Never one source on its own.