Play/Things: Toys and the Invention of Modern Childhood August 11, 2010

This exhibition will highlight toys, dolls and dollhouses from the museum's permanent collection as well as important objects on loan from collectors. By pairing toys with book illustrations, advertisements, period photographs and other images of children at play, the exhibition will present toys as the props used by youngsters in performances of childhood as stage-managed by adults. It is the adults, however, whose concerns ultimately informed the design, manufacture, marketing, distribution and purchase of toys.