Work and Play: The Production and Consumption of Toys in Germany, 1870–1914 (review)

Germany as 'belated nation'—lagging behind its Western European peers to enter into economic and, more fatefully, political modernity—has long been a favored interpretive model in German historiography. As part of the more recent, on-going revision of this view, spearheaded in the 1980s by David Blackbourn and Geoff Eley, David Hamlin takes that most humble, intimate, and whimsical of objects, the childhood toy, as a prism through which to re-evaluate Wilhelmine Germany's economic and social modernity. And indeed, in this fascinating, ambitious account, the toy industry proves an ideal case study for the topic. Since they were often inexpensive, toys became an early cross-class, mass consumer good; the toy industry grew more quickly than the rest of the domestic economy, and Germany became a major, global exporter of toys—all hallmarks of a modern, consumer economy. Toys were also drawn into contemporary debates about cultural modernity, both as spectacular objects vital to urban visual culture and as emblems of the autonomous individual because of their role in fostering freedom through expressive play.

In crafting his analysis, Hamlin pulls together a rich variety of material regarding toy production, distribution and consumption: changes in industrial techniques; regional nuances and environmental factors; shopping habits based in familial relationships; shop window displays and urban culture; pedagogical literature on cognitive development; colonial fantasies and imperialist policies; and reform movements seeking to counteract the ill effects of mass consumerism and the exploitation of workers. This multifaceted approach provides a deep understanding of the processes and attitudes behind the rise of modern consumerism.

Take, for instance, the soaring interest in mechanical toys at century's end, which Hamlin does not take for granted as a necessary development, but instead dissects in all of its origins and implications. On the level of production, metal toys lent themselves more readily than wood or cloth toys to industrial mechanization, giving metal toy producers distinct advantages: the increased volume enabled by mechanization led to lower prices, while mechanical standardization often resulted in higher, more uniform levels of quality, making mechanical toys more attractive. Mechanization was also predicated, however, on specific, regional developments. Nuremberg, which up to mid-century was a locus of wooden toy production, later became the primary center of metal toy production partly because it had a social geography conducive to the change—as a center of metalworking more generally, it had a pre-existing network of machine salesmen, engineers and repairmen to service the machines—and partly because of the rapidly rising price of wood in the Nuremberg area (as opposed to wood-rich areas like the Erzgebirge).

The rise of mechanical toys was also based on cultural factors, however, such as the importance of Christmas in smoothing over tensions within the bourgeois family. Nineteenth century parents found themselves "caught between a Foucauldian mission to discipline their children and a Romantic demand to allow them to develop into the individuals nature intended." (15) The tension between these goals led to a daily routine of surveillance, tempered by Christmas as an occasion at which to relax the strictures of discipline in favor of unadulterated expressions of joy. To create this moment of release, parents sought toys with strong, immediate visual appeal—in particular, spectacular mechanical toys—that could spark feelings of pleasure and affection in children. Retailers also promoted mechanical toys, but for their own purposes. Nineteenth century toy producers rarely approached consumers directly or created distinctive brand names, relying instead on retailers as middlemen. Retailers in turn used the toys to sell themselves as desirable shopping venues. At Christmastime in particular, department stores found that moving toys were an effective way to capture the attention of distracted shoppers, and thus privileged electric trains, automobiles, and other mechanical toys in their display windows.

The growing popularity of mechanical toys spawned an aesthetic critique of the toy industry. As Hamlin argues, however, aesthetic reformers were not simply...