Playing with history: American identities and children’s consumer culture, 1917-2017

This thesis deals with the changing notions of American identity as conveyed and fashioned through children’s consumer products throughout the 20th century. Each case study looks at a different period of time though a sampling of material culture, literature, and entertainment spaces. The thesis begins with the advent of the American toy industry in the early twentieth century and looks at the early implications of linking children’s toys with patriotism and whiteness. Chapter two examines the Great Depression and the ways different groups used children’s dolls and toys to elaborate a vision of the country they longed for during an unstable time. Chapter three looks at the consensus history of America as told through two children’s history books series (Random House’s Landmark Books and Bobbs-Merrill’s Childhood of Famous Americans) published during the Cold War. Chapter four looks at Freedomland U.S.A., an American history themed amusement park that sprang up and then was quickly torn down in the Bronx in the 1960s. The thesis concludes with a chapter that looks at the production of a multicultural, global , but ultimately homogenous American girl through the many facets of the American Girl Brand from the 1980s to the present. Through these objects, books, toys, dolls, and amusement parks, this thesis traces the myths and lessons sold to children in their leisure items, making it clear that childhood is political. This set of cases, each concerned with American history, it becomes clear over the course of the last century, consumerism has become a primary way children learn to access American democracy and engage in political action.Ph.D.Includes bibliographical referencesby Molly Rosne