Heinz-Hermann Köhler grew up in a country village in Lower Saxony. In 1936 after completing elementary school, he moved in with relatives in nearby Hildesheim, a mid-sized provincial town, so he could attend the Agricultural School. In contrast to… [more]

A piñata is a decorated container of paper or clay that contains sweets, small toys, fruits, and nuts. It is the object of a game played in Mexico at children's birthday parties and at Christmas celebrations, in which blindfolded children take turns… [more]

The photograph, dated 1928, from the well-known ethnographic collection The North American Indian by Edward Edward S. Curtis, is a portrait of a young Piegan girl standing in front of a painted tipi, or conical tent. The label on the photograph by… [more]

The hand-modeled, terracotta, wheeled figurine of a bird with a ram's head was excavated from an archaeological site in the Indus Valley called Mohenjo-daro, a city that flourished between 2600 and 1900 BCE. Museum curators added the wooden axle… [more]

This girl is from a village in the Mossi country of Burkina Faso (a landlocked country in West Africa). The doll she is holding is a traditional wooden figurine made from one piece of wood standing on a broader base. The doll displays the… [more]

The material culture of early childhood in the 21st century is characterized by an emphasis on biological age and related levels of cognitive and motor skill development. All types of objects, including diapers, toys, food products, and clothing, are… [more]

The photograph shows a boy "driving" an ingeniously simple but functional toy truck made of wire, wood, and what are likely plastic bottlecap wheels. Purchased, often imported toys are very expensive and homemade toys are common in many poorer… [more]

This small (5.5 inches high) terracotta sculpture was made in Greek southern Italy in the late fourth century BCE. It depicts two adolescent girls playing the game of "knucklebones" (astragaloi in Greek). The game was usually played like the modern… [more]

Motivated by wartime hysteria and racial sentiments following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 that ordered the removal of Japanese Americans on the West Coast to… [more]

Theodore de Bry included this colorful engraving in his publication of Hariot's, A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia (1590). It was based on a watercolor by John White (fig. 2) painted five or six years earlier. Despite their… [more]