For the Kiddies: Children’s Toys and Games
During the era, children were creative. It was a time when simple amusements could entertain youngsters for hours. Every year, the toy market came out with the same basic toys, but in different colors, as well as some items unique to the year. Toys of the forties were elaborate, well-designed, and well-made. Boys and girls played with distinctly different toys, as demonstrated by one early 1940s Army Doctor-Army Nurse kit, made available with the statement that “every little boy can play a doctor and every little girl can play a nurse.”
In the early 1940s, American factories made war equipment a priority, as opposed to toys and games. In the meantime, children had to be inventive. They would often make their own toys, adapt their old or broken ones, or go without, using their imaginations to invent constructive games and playthings.
Toys for boys often reflected the fact that there was a war on: guns, military vehicles, army figures, and toys that required assembly—model planes, ships, cars. There were electric train sets, and even kits to build actual cement roads for their scale models. The later forties emphasized the Wild West; boys pretended to be cowboy heroes with Tom Mix spurs and cap guns. Girls, to aid them in playing house, had everything their mother had, except in a smaller version. There were carpet sweepers, refrigerators (with real lights), washboards, ironing boards, and tea sets. Almost every little girl had a doll (Shirley Temple dolls were still on the market), or played with paper dolls.
Children’s board and card games of the era were many, including best-sellers Camelot, Rook (“The Game of Games”), Finance (a trading game), Flinch, Sorry, and Make-a-Million. Of course, Monopoly remained popular, as did Pit (“Exciting fun for everyone”). Evenings could be spent competing at Parcheesi, checkers, chess, Scrabble, dominoes, Chinese Checkers, or Candy Land. In the strictly card game category were Hearts, War, and Slap Jack. Indoor games which children resorted to on rainy days were “Red Light, Green Light”, “Mother May I?” and “Take a Giant Step.”
Competing in marbles
Playing jacks
The first option for play was outdoors. On the school playground at recess, marbles was a favorite game; “Playing for Keeps” meant the winner would get to keep all the marbles he won. Classics such as jump rope, tag, hopscotch, and jacks were common. Balls were a popular, cheap amusement, with which almost any game could be invented. One was “Stoop Ball”, played by bouncing a rubber ball against steps and involving a scoring system. Stickball was another favorite.
Collecting was another pastime. Children could emulate President Roosevelt by starting a stamp collection. Boys collected sports cards, which they traded with friends. Girls clipped favorite movie star photographs from magazines, and sorted, saved, and traded them. Cereal companies, such as Kellogg’s and General Mills, offered “premiums”; children could exchange box tops and a few cents for items of all sorts—model planes, baseball cards, button pins. This could transform any child’s life into one of a collecting frenzy.
Photograph Credits- TOY ADS (2): retrowaste; MARBLES: reddit; JACKS: historyinphotos.blogspot.com; PREMIUM: booksteveslibrary.blogspot.
While Popeye was telling children to eat their spinach, children’s books of the period, particularly before and during the war, upheld high morals through thinly disguised lessons taught to puppies and trains.