Toys long ago
History · Early Years · The School
What is different
Toys from long ago look different from yours. Many were made of WOOD, METAL or CLOTH, because plastic had not been invented yet. Almost none of them had batteries or lights or sounds. A rocking horse, a spinning top, a hoop and stick, a rag doll and marbles are all very old toys.
What is the same
Some things have not changed at all. Children have always had dolls and teddies, balls to throw, and things with wheels to push. A ball from a hundred years ago and a ball today do the same job. Noticing what STAYED THE SAME is just as much history as noticing what changed.
How we know
We know about old toys because some of them survived — in museums, in attics, and in families. We also have photographs, paintings and stories from the time. When you look at a toy in a museum you are looking at real evidence, not just a picture of the past.
A Victorian spinning top sits in a museum. How do we know children played with it? Three kinds of evidence. The OBJECT: 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 mentions a boy's top breaking. Object, picture and writing together — that is how a historian answers a question, never one source alone.