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Article: Engineers or artists? Toys, class and technology in Wilhelmine Germany.(SECTION II CHILDREN AND CHILDHOOD)(Essay)
- Article from:
- Journal of Social History
- Article date:
- December 22, 2008
- Author:
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In 1911, the Deutsche Spielwarenzeitung, which had a bi-weekly circulation of 20,000 stores and shops, advised toy sellers to tell customers "in the modern playroom everything is electric. Therefore the first requirement to facilitate play for the modern child is a miniature dynamo." (1) At the same time Westermanns Monatshefte, a German equivalent of the Atlantic Monthly whose readership numbered many tens of thousands, warned parents that "technological toys make the child pretentious and self-centered." The magazine demanded they be banned from all civilized playrooms in favor of more traditional wooden exemplars that articulated Heimat motifs. (2) Why did adults in ...