Toys between the Ludic and the Pedagogical Perspective in Late 19th Century Romania

Abstract

The paper proposes to identify what the 19th century brought as novelties in the “life” of toys, seen as items dedicated explicitly to children; I have focused, naturally, on the Romanian case. By correlating the accounts to which I had access, I was able to outline certain evolutions in the manufacture, use, purchase, and characteristics ascribed to toys in that period. I have noted, first of all, the social differentiation in terms of toy consumption. The lower classes – defined by their views of childhood, material resources and well-delimited systems of gratification/rewarding – used more or less the same games and toys. Wealthier classes recorded a more diversified consumption, with urban influences, while the children of the elites became increasingly familiar with the offers of the Western world, brought directly from the source or just copied here. Another highlighted aspect is the increase in standardisation and even the industrialisation of toy production.