Toys and other entertainment are timeless and classless, but it was not until the 1950s – and the onset of mass consumption – that they offered such a wide variation of possibilities. Until then, children mainly used to play with toys they made themselves from recycled materials, acting out their fantasies to entertain themselves. They would play with balls, spinning tops, diabolos, marbles, yo-yos, knucklebones,
sticks and wooden swords. Their main playground was outside, where they could climb trees and play hide and seek. In winter, they would skate on frozen ponds or streams or use a piece of stone or chalk to play hopscotch
on a doorstep. They would hop and skip from earth to heaven, a symbol for the path their souls would follow later on.
The oldest toys were made of clay or wood. At the end of the 18th century, colourful printed paper and cardboard were added, leading to the creation of puzzle blocks, for example. Technical advances in the 19th century made it possible to mechanically design and produce toys made of tin. Industrialisation led to the large-scale production of more and more toys in factories.
‘Learning while you play’, with a greater focus on mental and creative development, didn’t really take off until the 18th century. In fact, the first puzzles were actually maps that had been cut up and were intended to teach children geography. Some board games, on display in the cabinet, also take advantage of this trend. A game teaches children about the everyday tasks of a missionary in the Congo or helps them to discover the main economic production areas in Belgium. Construction kits and construction toys also have a pedagogic purpose. With image building blocks, children still have to stick to specific schedules, with a real construction set, they learn to develop their own creative and constructive ideas.
Toys quite often reflected children’s roles in later life as an adult. Girls were prepared during play for their later role as a wife and were given dolls and dolls houses with complete interiors (including, for example, mini stoves
and kitchen utensils) to learn how to organise a household.
Boys were mainly attracted by war games in which tin soldiers and toy guns were an essential attribute to imitate famous battles.