Designing the Creative Child: Playthings and Places in Midcentury America

Acknowledgments

195 a C k n O w l e D g m e n t s I A M G R A T E F U L for the financial support of the American Association of University Women, the Canadian Centre for Architecture, the Lemelson Center at the Smithsonian Institution, the CRS Archive Center at Texas A&M University, and the Spencer Foundation. I thank Pieter Martin for taking on this project and Kristian Tvedten for expert guidance at the University of Minnesota Press. There are many scholars whose work on the history of art, architecture , design, and material culture has affected my thinking. Abigail A. Van Slyck, Kate Solomonson, and Marta Gutman helped shape this manuscript, and I am indebted to their insights, generosity, and kindness. I also signal my gratitude to Ning de Coninck Smith, Ned Cooke, Maarten Delbeke, Gabrielle Esperdy, Alice Friedman, Michael Golec, Carma Gorman, Elizabeth Guffey, Dale Allen Gyure, Mimi Hellman, Juliet Kinchin, Medina Lasansky, Barksdale Maynard, Caroline Maniaque, Victor Margolin, Jennifer Milam, Wallis Miller, Jacki Musacchio, Aidan O’Connor, Jacqueline Reid-Walsh, Kirsi Saarikangas, Ezra Shales, Andy Shanken, Susan G. Solomon, and Gennifer Weisenfeld. I thank Susan Weber for her sustaining commitment to the serious study of design, decorative arts, and material culture that the Bard Graduate Center represents. My colleagues at the Bard Graduate Center are inspiring models and intellectual partners. They have made many years on West Eighty-Sixth Street a constantly enriching experience. I owe a special debt to Ken Ames and Pat Kirkham, whose advice and recommendations helped sustain my research and writing. The title of the book was suggested by Catherine Whalen. Many students, especially Alexa Griffith Winton, Sarah Lichtman, and Marie Warsh, generously fed me tidbits from their own research . I especially appreciate contributions to my initial research from my AcKnowlEdGMEntS 196 former student assistants Monica Obniski and Sonya Topolnisky Abrego. Colin Fanning helped heroically with editing and the production of illustrations and the index. I owe a huge debt to the staffs of the archives, museums, and libraries I visited, especially the Museum of Modern Art, the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, the Strong Museum, the Canadian Centre for Architecture , the Archives Center at the National Museum of American History, the Architectural Archive at the University of Pennsylvania, the Walker Art Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the CRS Archives Center at Texas A&M University, the Bancroft Library at the University of California at Berkeley, Beth Alberty (formerly of the Brooklyn Children’s Museum), the National Education Library, the Library of Congress , the Bobst Library at New York University, and the Avery Library at Columbia University. I owe much more to several generations of Bard Graduate Center library staff, especially Heather Topcik, Janis Ekdahl, Greta Earnest, Erin Elliott, Cheryl Costello, and Karyn Hinkle, whose intelligence and effectiveness have been invaluable. My thanks go to Joan Barenholtz, Fred Bassetti, Theresa Caplan, Malcolm Holzman, Philip W. Jackson, Amy Kasai, Diana Korzenik, Norman McGrath, David Sprafkin, and Lester Walker, who shared personal experiences and private archives. Elizabeth J. Moodey, Pippa White, and Michèle Majer deserve special notice for their friendship, intellectual insights, and exquisite gifts of vintage toys and ephemera. I am also grateful to many friends and neighbors , especially Kati Koerner, Paule Moureaux-Néry, Catherine Mulcahy and John Curry, Alexandra Neuber, and Sharon Silber, whose company on the benches at Bennett Park has given me new perspective on the project that is childhood. My gratitude and love go to my parents, who bought Creative Playthings toys and the House of Cards (and then saved them) and spent their lives toiling creatively. Eugene Goldwasser, my father-in-law, died as the manuscript was nearing completion. I am in awe of his contributions to science and humanity and his generous and humble spirit, and feel grateful to have known him. Matthew Goldwasser helped me pick through the education debates. My biggest debt and deepest thanks go to James Goldwasser, whose presence is everywhere in this project. I am the grateful recipient of his love and creativity, which have taken manifold forms: well-edited texts, full bookcases and walls, fine family dinners, and good music. Finally, this AcKnow lEdGMEntS 197 book owes much to the children in my family: my two sisters, Piet and Miye, who were the most important actors in my own childhood; my nephews, Jonah and Caleb; and most of all my son...