Toy Exhibit Reaches to the Child in Everyone
by ROD BELCHER

As the holiday season approaches, ask any child what he or she wants Santa to bring for Christmas, and you will hear many variations on the same theme —toys.

For many adults, the Christmas toys of their children and grandchildren are a very different affair than when they themselves crept downstairs as children to see the treasures waiting under the tree.

A new exhibit at the History Museum and Historical Society of Western Virginia seeks to bring back those memories of childhood past through the toys that helped make them so memorable. “A Century of Fun: Toys in Western Virginia 1840-1940” opened at the museum, located in downtown Roanoke’s Center in the Square, in November and will run through the end of December.

All the toys in the display belonged to people who lived and grew up in Southwestern Virginia. Some are on loan; others have been donated to the museum.

One such donor is retiree Sara Airheart, who volunteers to help in the museum’s collections department. Airheart’s family, the Stonesifers, held onto several of their most beloved toys, like paper dolls and a toy baby carriage dating from the 1890’s. These are on display.

“Many people may have things like these in their attics or basements,” Airheart said, “I hope people will come in and say ‘Oh, I have one of those’ and donate them to the museum. I thought it was better to donate the toys to a museum than have them packed away somewhere.”

“We had 20 to 30 donors who had provided us with their toys over the course of the year and eight lenders who allowed us to borrow items from their private collections for the show,” said Kent Chrisman, executive director of the museum. “We are very grateful to everyone for sharing these items with the museum.”

Chrisman said that looking at toys from the 1840’s to the beginning of the Second World War shows a fascinating change in the attitudes of parents and children over the century and some compelling similarities.

“We wanted to show the continuity and the changes over time in the exhibit,” he said.

For example, dolls.

“You didn’t have baby dolls in the 1850’s,” Chrisman said.

One of the items in the exhibit, dating to 1840, is a set of paper dolls. The dolls were created using a projected light technique similar to the silhouette profiles that were popular then. These dolls and others in the collection that are from the 1800’s are representations of adults, both men and women. Even when dolls were created as toys, later using materials like wax and porcelain, they resembled miniature adults more often than children.

Chrisman explained that one major shift in toys was that before the late 1800’s, toys were mostly miniature versions of the grown-up world.

“Children were treated and viewed as ‘little adults’ at that time,” Chrisman said. “Toys reflected that. Toys were there to help teach children life skills. Many of them were built to actually work, just like the adult items they copied.”

Examples of these kinds of toys are present in the exhibit. From tiny, perfectly patterned china diner sets and tea cups only a doll could eat from, to a small crystal glass punch bowl with mugs that are just the right size for a doll’s hands. There also are small working irons and miniature working stoves capable of heating up hundreds of degrees and cooking just like the household stove.

Chrisman said the philosophy behind toys had started to change by 1875.

“The world children lived in began to become a fantasy world, separate from the adult world,” he said. “By 1925, you were seeing more baby dolls, more of what we today consider traditional toys.”

Chrisman added that commercialism and technology began creeping into the world of toys at that time. The exhibit includes many examples of early clock-wound toys, steam-driven toys and, of course, electric train sets.

“Because it wouldn’t be a toy exhibit in Southwest Virginia without trains,” Chrisman laughed.

The exhibit also showcases what may well be the great-grandfather of serial toy lines, like the ubiquitous Power Rangers, the Schoenhut figure collections.

“The Schoenhut family were from Germany and were the largest toy manufacturers in the 1900’s,” Chrisman said. “They developed techniques to mass produce their toys and had toy sets based on popular media figures like Teddy Roosevelt. They also figured out that they could reuse the same toys from one set of figures to another set, so their circus set has many of the same jungle animals as their Teddy Roosevelt set. Their motto was ‘start your circus set with one figure and add figures as you go.’ "

“Their toys reflected pop culture,” Chrisman explained. “They were just as trendy as they are today.”

Other treats awaiting those who attend the exhibit include early riding toys, like the velocipede, and a set of doctor and nurse dolls from 1935, that were dressed like the staff of Jefferson Hospital - a local hospital that served the Roanoke community from 1906 to 1967.

“This is the largest exhibit of toys we’ve done at the museum to date,” Chrisman said. “We’re very excited about the display and thought what would be a better time to take a look at toys than with the holidays right around the corner. We hope local families will come out together and share some memories with us at the exhibit.”

You can call the History Museum and Historical Society of Western Virginia at 540-342-5770 for more details about the exhibit.

Rod Belcher is a Roanoke-based freelance writer.