Cross, Gary : Pennsylvania State University Main Campus

Gary Cross is Professor of History at Pennsylvania State University.

"[A] fascinating new study of American toys...Mr. Cross not only gives the reader a succinct history of toys in America, but also examines the reasons for the sea change that has taken place in the toy industry in recent years. He looks at changing notions of childhood and disparate theories of play, and he assesses the declining popularity of the educational toy as a means of developing a child's creativity and skills...He has not written a polemic or diatribe, but an intelligently informed analysis that reveals a lot about how our attitudes toward children, and children's attitudes toward the world, have evolved over the last century."

--Michiko Kakutani, New York Times

"Gary Cross, in his book on the history of American toys, notes that for a century or so, manufactured American toys--dolls, trains, soldiers, board games--encouraged children to fantasize about joining the adult world. In that way, they were Bruegelesque. Childhood may have been seen as a privileged time, but there was still a fundamental message: someday all this was to be left behind, as Winnie-the-Pooh was when Christopher Robin went off to school...More recently, Mr. Cross argues, the game has changed. Contemporary toys, particularly for boys, including figures like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Power Rangers and video games like Virtual Fighter and Quake, encourage a fantasy world independent of adult influence and adult rationality, a world with its own languages, rules and culture. Adults are irrelevant as either players or models."

--Edward Rothstein, New York Times

"[Gary Cross] has read every trade journal, toy press release, Erector set ad and obscure article from or on American toy history. In this indispensable book, his is a kind of tunnel-vision scholarship at the end of which, rare in our times, there is actually illumination...If the once modest toy is beginning to be displaced from its previously immodest spot in the child's heart, this history of toys should gain a place in adult consciousness. It, too, is a tool, directing us toward a new-style education in what's important in our particular age of confusion presided over by the entertainment conglomerate, that voice of modern authority. With the help of Gary Cross, we can now take a long look at history and give some thought to how to deal with our children's new transnational babysitters."

--Tom Engelhardt, The Nation

"No parent of a Teletubby fan would disagree with the argument of Gary Cross's Kids' Stuff...that toy makers no longer sell to parents, but to children, and that television is their most powerful marketing tool. As Mr. Cross shows in his enjoyable history, the origins of this trend are old."

--The Economist

"Gary Cross observes that as more toys are derived from cartoons and other media--which can limit kids' play to scenarios that someone else has dreamed up--children's rooms are turning into shrines to fast-food giveaways and movie tie-ins."

--Ron Taffel, Parents

"Kid's Stuff gives a detailed and fascinating analysis of the conceptual, emotional, and commercial developments that have brought us to the point where the purchase, not the product (let alone the giver or receiver) is the focus of social interest...Cross's message is evaluative and realistic."

--Julia Thorogood, Times Educational Supplement

"Gary Cross's thoroughly researched and thoughtful history of toys does more than examine the playthings that have amused and instructed generations of American children. It sheds light on the changing meanings of childhood, parenting, and play, while illuminating the ever-shifting balance of power among parents, children, and mass marketers in our modern consumer culture...Its nuanced and accessibly written discussions highlight some of the cultural tensions inherent in rearing children in an age of mass consumption and make it an important contribution to the history of childhood, popular culture, and consumerism."

-Lisa Jacobson, Journal of Social History

"A compelling study...Cross is a wise and wry guide with a keen eye for detail, taking the reader from the Noah's arks and Polly Dollies of pre-industrial America to the Killer Tomatoes of today...[He] quietly asserts our parental responsibility to `raise independent children in, rather than against, a culture of consumption.'"

--Publishers Weekly

"Cross has a good, readable style that would make the book accessible to those who haven't thought much about the topic before. Face it, what isn't there about toys to capture the interest?...Cross mingles social history with economic history, as he tells us about the toy manufacturers, the strategies used to market their products, the consumer market, and the changing toys themselves. Changes in family life and its idealization, in the ways we celebrate holidays (managed by marketing firms), in discretionary spending and consumption patterns, in educational philosophies, as well as in production technologies shaped the American market for toys. Throughout, Cross is sensitive to issues of class, gender, and race...I recommend this book to anyone interested in socialization, childhood, children and family life, or toys. Usable in your undergraduate classes, it may also supply the excuse you need to get down on the floor and play with your favorite toy and/or your favorite kid."

--Barbara Tomaskovic-Devey, Contemporary Sociology

"Some books just beg to be read. Gary Cross's Kids' Stuff is one of those books. With its blue cover and colorful Romper Room lettering, featuring an enormous FAO Schwarz bear, the book demands the reader's attention. Fortunately, the book delivers nearly all that the cover promises, providing readers a fascinating glimpse at the past hundred years of the American toy industry...Kids' Stuff is a marvelous read. It is a fascinating topic, presented in a readable, enjoyable manner. The author has done an excellent job of researching how all sorts of adults have attempted to mold the wants and desires of American children. The book will find a niche in the classrooms of those teaching the history of the family, popular culture, and even American history surveys that incorporate the history of childhood. Equally, the 'average' reader, simply wanting a stimulating book, or a journey back into his or her own childhood, will find Kids' Stuff well worth the effort."

--Pamela Riney-Kehrberg, Annals of Iowa

Harvard University Press Web Site, July, 2000

To sort out who's who and what's what in the enchanting, vexing world of Barbies® and Ninja Turtles®, Tinkertoys® and teddy bears, is to begin to see what's become of childhood in America. It is this changing world, and what it unveils about our values, that Gary Cross explores in Kids' Stuff, a revealing look into the meaning of American toys through this century.

Early in the 1900s toys reflected parents' ideas about children and their futures. Erector sets introduced boys to a realm of business and technology, while baby dolls anticipated motherhood and building blocks honed the fine motor skills of the youngest children. Kids' Stuff chronicles the transformation that occurred as the interests and intentions of parents, children, and the toy industry gradually diverged--starting in the 1930s when toymakers, marketing playthings inspired by popular favorites like Shirley Temple and Buck Rogers, began to appeal directly to the young. TV advertising, blockbuster films like Star Wars®, and Saturday morning cartoons exploited their youthful audience in new and audacious ways. Meanwhile, powerful social and economic forces were transforming the nature of play in American society. Cross offers a richly textured account of a culture in which erector sets and baby dolls are no longer alone in preparing children for the future, and in which the toys that now crowd the racks are as perplexing for parents as they are beguiling for little boys and girls. Whether we want our children to be high achievers in a competitive world or playful and free from the worries of adult life, the toy store confronts us with many choices.

What does the endless array of action figures and fashion dolls mean? Are children--or parents--the dupes of the film, television, and toy industries, with their latest fads and fantasies? What does this say about our time, and what does it bode for our future? Tapping a vein of rich cultural history, Kids' Stuff exposes the serious business behind a century of playthings.

Modern Childhood, Modern Toys
Shaping the Child's Future
Freeing the Child's Imagination
Building Blocks of Character
The Boomers' Box of Toys
Spinning Out of Control
Making Sense of the Modern Toybox


Notes
Credits
Index