Gifts and Commodities: Second-Hand Toys, Marginal Consumers, and the Marketization of Philanthropy in Interwar and Early Postwar Canada

This paper examines the connection between marginal consumers, middle-class philanthropy, and the expansion of consumer society among working-class children in Canada. By studying secondhand toy distribution in the interwar and early postwar period, it becomes clear that secondhand toy distribution was wrapped up in efforts to reform working-class families and further integrate those on the margins into the capitalist market. However, by the early postwar period, important changes in the manufacture of toys and the organization of philanthropy led to a decline in the distribution of secondhand toys and their replacement with donations of cash and new toys.