Back in 2019, Dr. Sami Schalk contributed a piece to Inside Higher Ed titled “Lowbrow Culture and Guilty Pleasures? The Performance and Harm of Academic Elitism.” The article was in response to Times Higher Education reporter Jack Grove’s tweet, which put out a call to “some scholars who would write for THE about their guilty cultural pleasures/unashamed love for supposedly ‘lowbrow‘ subjects/activities.” Dr. Schalk argued that the uncritical use of term “lowbrow” ignored the biases embedded in such a word, […]
The Marketing of Cabbage Patch Kids Dolls
Were you one of the kids who was told that babies are found in the cabbage patch? That old folk tale gained additional resonance in the 1970s when what would become Cabbage Patch Kids dolls had their conception in rural Georgia.
Influenced by Martha Nelson Thomas’ Doll Babies, art student Xavier Roberts combined his interest in needle molding with the quilting skills he learned from his mother to craft soft sculptures he called Little People. Roberts’ creations featured a pudgy face […]
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The Lonely Doll and Unconventional Connections
Born in 1914, Dare Wright spent her early childhood with her mother, famed portrait artist Edith (Edie) Stevenson Wright. Edie treated Dare like a companion and the pair often created imaginary worlds through reading, writing, drawing, carpentry, and sewing. Dare loved to read Robin Hood, Grimms’ fairy tales, and The Lovely Garden, and she spent countless hours occupied by her dolls. Following Dare’s enrollment at Laurel boarding school in the fourth grade, Edith purchased Dare a 22-inch-tall Lenci doll on […]
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The Importance of Coloring and Authentic Self-Expression
In 1900, Binney & Smith ventured into the school supply business. The company created handy multicolored non-toxic wax sticks in black, brown, orange, violet, blue, green, red, and yellow. Alice Binney combined the French words for “chalk” and “oily” (craie and olea) to make “Crayola.” The crayons hit the market in 1903 and kids snapped them up. Over the years, appealing new colors tracked fashion trends and cultural change.
One of Crayola’s most problematic colors was called Flesh Tint. First introduced […]
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Masters of the Universe Muscles into the National Toy Hall of Fame
On November 10, 2022, Masters of the Universe took their place of honor in the National Toy Hall of Fame. This is not the first time He-Man, Skeletor, and Castle Grayskull made recent headlines. Mattel Creations just launched a Masters of the Universe Origins He-Man 40th Anniversary Pack and fans who attended the San Diego Comic Con posted the grandiose Eternia play set to social media. Just this past July, Masters of the Universe: Revelation, developed by Kevin Smith, began […]
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Pampered Pooches: Anthropomorphized Dolls
The Strong recently acquired a few anthropomorphized fashion dolls. A dog with a human-like body and an extensive wardrobe is really something to behold. As much as I admired these dolls, I could not help but to ask why did these show-up in the toy aisle and were they successful?
Giving human characteristics to animals has existed for centuries. Ancient gods were frequently presented as hybridized human-like animals. In the 18th and 19th centuries, as naturalists discovered and classified new species […]
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From the Page to the Playroom
In 1976, scholar Barbara Bader defined a picture book as “text, illustrations, total design; an item of manufacture and a commercial product; a social, cultural, historic document; and foremost, an experience for a [reader/beholder]. As an art form it hinges on the interdependence of pictures and words, on the simultaneous display of two facing pages, and on the drama of the turning page.” I am fascinated by these works of art. Picture books serve as visual and tactile experiences. Many […]
Ditch the “Ladies’ Guide to Football” and Get in the Game
A recent addition to The Strong museum’s collection got me thinking about how gender intersects with professional football and what’s changed (or hasn’t) since the mid-1960s.
The item that caught my eye was a 1966 promotional booklet from Birds Eye frozen foods. Titled “Ladies’ Guide to Football,ʺ It’s filled with pop-art illustrations, the rules of the game, recommended stadium attire, and recipes requiring Birds Eye products (of course). The booklet was “dedicated to those women for whom autumn Sunday afternoons are […]
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American Girl Dolls Inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame
Following a visit to historic Williamsburg, Virginia, and a Christmas shopping trip for her nieces, educator and newscaster Pleasant Rowland pondered, “Here I am, in a generation of women at the forefront of redefining women’s roles, and yet our daughters are playing with dolls that celebrate being a teen queen or mommy.” Rowland spent a weekend creating a concept intended to redefine how girls interacted with their playthings, and in 1986, she launched a new line of 18-inch dolls—American Girl […]
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