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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]

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Susan Douglass

The National Museum of African Art website is a colorful destination that showcases a dynamic mixture of historical, traditional, and contemporary… [more]

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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]

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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]

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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]

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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]

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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]

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The photographs show children during the mid-Autumn Harvest Festival, or Tet Trung Thu in Vietnam, a children's festival associated with the full moon. Tet Trung Thu follows the harvest in the eighth lunar month, falling usually during September or… [more]

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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]

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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… [more]