Designing the creative child : playthings and places in midcentury America /
The postwar American stereotypes of suburban sameness, traditional gender roles, and educational conservatism have masked an alternate self-image tailor-made for the Cold War. The creative child, an idealized future citizen, was the darling of baby boom parents, psychologists, marketers, and designe...
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| Online Access: |
Full text (MCPHS users only) |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic eBook |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Minneapolis :
University of Minnesota Press,
2013
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| Series: | Architecture, landscape, and American culture series.
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| Subjects: | |
| Local Note: | ProQuest Ebook Central |
| Summary: | The postwar American stereotypes of suburban sameness, traditional gender roles, and educational conservatism have masked an alternate self-image tailor-made for the Cold War. The creative child, an idealized future citizen, was the darling of baby boom parents, psychologists, marketers, and designers who saw in the next generation promise that appeared to answer the most pressing worries of the age. This book reveals how a postwar cult of childhood creativity developed and continues to this day. Exploring how the idea of children as imaginative and naturally creative was constructed, disseminated, and consumed in the United States after World War II, the author argues that educational toys, playgrounds, small middle-class houses, new schools, and children's museums were designed to cultivate imagination in a growing cohort of baby boom children. Enthusiasm for encouraging creativity in children countered Cold War fears of failing competitiveness and the postwar critique of social conformity, making creativity an emblem of national revitalization. The author describes how a historically rooted belief in children's capacity for independent thinking was transformed from an elite concern of the interwar years to a fully consumable and aspirational ideal that persists today. From building blocks to Gumby, playhouses to Playskool trains, Creative Playthings to the Eames House of Cards, Crayola fingerpaint to children's museums, material goods and spaces shaped a popular understanding of creativity, and this book demonstrates how this notion has been woven into the fabric of American culture.--description provided by publisher. |
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| Physical Description: | 1 online resource (xxii, 293, [12] pages of plates) : illustrations (some color) |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (pages 239-279) and index. |
| ISBN: | 9781461931911 1461931916 9781452939247 1452939241 9781452948119 1452948119 |
| Language: | English. |
| Source of Description, Etc. Note: | Print version record. |
