This oil on canvas painting by an unknown American folk artist was painted around 1840. It depicts two siblings at play. While their mother is absent from the picture, she presided over the "private sphere" of the home as prescribed by the ideology of "separate spheres" that defined everyday life in 19th-century America. Charged with raising boys to be citizens (and girls to be wives and mothers of citizens), it was mothers' moral duty to oversee the development of their children's "good character." As a result, sons under the age of 6 inhabited the domestic sphere along with their sisters where they were dressed in the same loose-fitting pantaloons, dresses, and petticoats.

Although both girls and boys both donned silk, satin, and velvet dresses, there were differences in their apparel and activities. Young boys were distinguishable from girls by their hairstyle (boys were more likely to wear side parts) and hats. Boys also engaged in different play activities: it was considered indecent for girls to straddle a rocking horse. Rocking on the "hobby horse" enabled boys like this youngster to practice the balancing ability he would need in order to ride a real horse as he took his place in the "public sphere." Riding the rocking horse and brandishing a whip also provided boys with the opportunity to practice the skills and sensibilities of masculinity—independence, mastery, confidence, control, courage, and dominance. The boy's placement at the center of the painting and protectively above and in front of his older sister, also prescribed his position in the Victorian gender hierarchy where he would perform manliness through initiative, competition, forcefulness, and rationality.

Compare this work with images of children in other folk art paintings. How else are girls and boys represented?

Strongly influencing the invention of Robert J. Clay's mechanized "Creeping Baby Doll" in 1871, were changing notions of childhood that fostered children's development.

Allowing babies to crawl on all fours as did Clay's doll reflected recent changes in childrearing practices. In Early Modern Europe and in early America, the association between crawling babies and the insane and animals, led parents to require babies to stand and walk as soon as they were able. Greater understanding of children's development by the early 19th century led parents to stash the seat-less "standing stool" that had been used for generations. Although in 1835, Amira Phelps, a mother and a female educator, asserted in her diary that she would not let her son "learn to creep," by the time he was able to she accepted crawling as "nature's way."

As notions of childhood continued to change in the years after the Civil War, American men like Robert J. Clay applied their ingenuity to the invention of toys and the development of an American industry. Competing against the Europeans whose dolls flooded the American market, male inventor/businessmen applied machine technology to doll designs. Rather than patent the entire doll as Clay did, most inventors patented a single device (e.g., joints).

Although Clay claimed in his patent that the Creeping Baby Doll would be a "very amusing toy," mechanical dolls disturbed more than delighted consumers. Enoch Rice Morrison's top heavy "Autoperipatetikos" dolls often fell flat on their faces and Edison's "Talking Dolls" had speech problems. Seeking to improve upon Clay's prototype, his employer, Robert Pemberton Clarke, patented an "Improved Creeping Baby Doll."

Patent drawings and descriptions of inventions provide more than just technical information: these sources are useful for understanding the construction of dolls and childhood.

Flemish painter, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, painted "Children's Games" in 1560. While many of his other paintings also portray peasant folk culture, this summer townscape that is devoid of adults is rich in detail about Medieval children—especially at play. The painting provides a window into amusements and recreations in the past in its detailed depiction of some 200 children engaged in nearly 80 different games and play activities. Many (although not all) of the outdoor activities included in this visual compendium of 16th-century children's play will be recognizably familiar.

Physically energetic and imaginatively engaged girls and boys are everywhere in Bruegel's busy painting. Some are using their bodies, others are playing with children and/or with toys (e.g., windmill; hoops). Here are some examples. Three boys mounted on a red fence are pretending to race horses. A few are playing leapfrog and others playing "horsey" and "tug of war." Another is straddling a hobbyhorse. Two girls are playing a medieval form of jacks (knucklebones) but with a bone instead of a ball. A group of children playing dress-up are staging a wedding. A small group of boys are spinning tops (a popular toy). A girl is playing musical instruments, another with a doll. A few boys are balancing on barrels. Some children are engaged in solitary play (e.g., blowing bubbles; dollmaking). While some are playing gently, there are rough bullies here as well.

In addition to this painting and additional ones by Bruegel the Elder there are other useful sources of information about children's play in medieval Europe. Illuminated manuscripts from the Netherlands include noteworthy depictions of children at play. Other kinds of evidence can be drawn from poetry, such as, The Pilgrim of the Life of Man, a French poem translated in 1426 by the English poet John Lydgate. It includes an energetic girl, named Youth, with a passion for play. She enumerates 25 different activities and games. Archeologists also have located toys and other objects for material culture analysis. A highly useful secondary source is Nicholas Orme's Medieval Children (Yale University Press, 2001). A comprehensive chapter on "play" is also lavishly illustrated with art and artifacts.

This short story by fiction writer, S.L. Wisenberg, sheds light on the influence of Anne Frank on the imagination and identity of Jewish girls growing up in postwar America. Written from a child's point of view and in the language of children, Wisenberg describes a fantasy game she played with her sister after reading the diary, seeing the popular movie on television, and viewing documentary footage of concentration camps in Hebrew school. From the safety of their walk-in closets in their middle-class suburban Texas home, the empathic pair anxiously imagined that they too were hiding from the Nazis in a secret annex. That Wisenberg saw herself through the eyes of the persecuted as well as persecutors illuminates the complexity of a developing sense of self that alloyed self-blame and survivor's guilt, with historical agency. Manifest in their girls' play is a tension between vigor and stealth. The tension between protecting children from the horrors of the Holocaust and the value placed on knowledge of the past is reflected in their parents' mixed messages about how much their daughters should know. That the sisters played in their pink-infused bedrooms (pink rug and shelf paper) where they also imagined themselves in feminized careers alludes to the gendered limitations they faced being female in the early 1960s.

Stories like this and other types of documentary sources (e.g., diaries, letters, oral histories, etc.) can provide researchers with insight into the meanings and nature of children's play, fantasy lives, and developing sense of self. Questions that might be fruitful for further study are: How has children's play been shaped by historical circumstances? In what ways is children's play natural and universal? How have gender, race, ethnicity, class, etc. influenced children's play?

The monkey figurine shown in two views is mounted on a wooden platform for display, but it was apparently designed with the ability to slide down a string or thin rod so as to appear to climb or jump. The figurine is hand-modeled from terracotta and features a fully rounded body in a complicated, lifelike pose with a realistic facial expression, ears, and incised lines representing its fur. The monkey was excavated from the Indus Valley archaeological site called Mohenjo-Daro, dated to ca. 2500 B.C.E. Excavations from sites in the Indus Valley included many figurines made from terracotta, some of which were clearly for entertainment, including whistles shaped like birds, small animals including bulls with moveable heads and horns, and toy carts. Archaeologists classified the monkey figurine as a toy. The figurine is 5.5 centimeters (2.1 inches) high.

Barbie—who is today the most famous doll in the world—was based on Lilli, a sexy and sassy German doll first produced in 1955. Co-founder of Mattel Inc., Ruth Hander transformed the Teutonic doll from floozy to fashion queen for American girls like her daughter, Barbara, after whom the doll was named. In all other ways, Barbie’s shapely body was nearly indistinguishable from Lilli’s pleasing figure. A decade after Barbie’s debut in 1959, however, Mattel altered her features (e.g., eliminating the arched eyebrows, scarlet cosmetics, sideways glancing eyes) in order to make the teenage fashion model look more youthful and wholesome.

The photographs in "Barbie Turns 21" published in LIFE magazine make it possible to examine Barbie across two transformative decades in the history of American girls and gender. Along with other primary sources, Barbie dolls (including her outfits and accessories) can be "read" or interpreted for what they reveal about the influence of feminism on changing constructions of girlhood between 1959 and 1979.

What meanings can be expressed in a material object? Conduct an analysis of the chronologically arranged Barbies seen here by examining each doll and outfit. What values are embodied in Barbie and encoded in her wardrobe? Are there any cultural contradictions—such as independence v. dependence—embedded in the material culture evidence? In what ways do these ambiguities point to broader ambivalences about changes for girls in postwar America? How does the article’s text support or complicate your understandings?

See also: "What Barbie Dolls Have to Say about Postwar American Culture," http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/idealabs/ap/essays/barbie.htm.

Six children of the Seri indigenous people slide down a hill using the shells of sea turtles as sleds, illustrating the universal ability of children to create play activities including equipment out of things in their environment. These children belong to a group that has been indigenous to the area for many generations, so it is likely that this game has a long heritage on the beaches where sea turtles come to breed. The place is Tiburón Island in the Gulf of California, the state of Sonora, Mexico. The island is named Tahéjöc in the language of the Seri, which is a linguistic isolate, or language distinct from all others in the region. Clans of Seri lived in the area of Tiburón Island for many centuries if not millennia. Their heritage was recognized by a decree of the Mexican government in 1975, granting them a title of communal property ("reconocimiento y titulación de terrenos comunales). Today Tiburón Island is a nature reserve.

The photograph was taken in 1924 by Edward H. Davis (1862-1951) who owned a ranch near San Diego, California. He explored the vicinity, photographed its indigenous inhabitants, and collected native objects. Through his knowledge of the region and familiarity with the people, he was able to capture this revealing, unusual image. George Heye, founder of the Museum of the American Indian, hired Davis in 1916 to help add to his collection.

This object made from terracotta was most likely a child's pull toy. Approximately 11 centimeters high and 16.5 centimeters long (4.3 x 6.5 inches), it features functional wheels and a hole at the mouth for a string. The buffalo shows traces of stripes in red paint, and has markings that represent its curly forelock. The object is dated to the Archaic Age (ca. 750-500 BCE) in Magna Graecia ("Greater Greece"), the region in the southern part of the Italian Peninsula colonized by the Greeks during the 8th century. Toys were presented to Greek children on the occasion of festivals and anniversaries, and had a ritual function. Dedicated to Dionysis, they were believed to calm a child and remove evil spirits, especially toys that made noise such as rattles and whistles.

The girl in the photograph is from the Asante peoples in Ghana. She is holding a purple plastic baby doll of a type that is frequently found in markets in Ghana. The doll is both imported from Taiwan and made domestically in Ghana. The modern plastic doll is based on an older, traditional form of wooden figurine manufactured by village blacksmiths to represent the adult, female figure. Girls play with these dolls they call biiga ("child"), by caring for them, dressing and feeding them, and sometimes tucking them into the waistbands of their skirts just as women carry infants in cloth wrappers wrapped around their torsos. There are significant rituals associated with girls, including the belief that proper care for the doll can ensure fertility and survival of children. Girls also carry the dolls for display when they go among adults, and might expect a token present when, for example, they place their doll on the ground in front of a merchant in the market. Wealthier families and those in the towns have come to consider the plastic dolls to be more prestigious than the traditional wooden ones. Unlike the Mossi dolls, however, the plastic versions are shaped like a girl rather than a woman, and have generally Caucasian features and western dress.