Children at Play: An American History

by Howard P. Chudacoff

A chronological history of children's playtime over the last 200 years

If you believe the experts, “child’s play”; is serious business. From sociologists to psychologists and from anthropologists to social critics, writers have produced mountains of books about the meaning and importance of play. But what do we know about how children actually play, especially American children of the last two centuries? In this fascinating and enlightening book, Howard Chudacoff presents a history of children’s play in the United States and ponders what it tells us about ourselves.

Through expert investigation in primary sources-including dozens of children's diaries, hundreds of autobiographical recollections of adults, and a wealth of child―rearing manuals―along with wide―ranging reading of the work of educators, journalists, market researchers, and scholars-Chudacoff digs into the “underground” of play. He contrasts the activities that genuinely occupied children's time with what adults thought children should be doing.

Filled with intriguing stories and revelatory insights, Children at Play provides a chronological history of play in the U.S. from the point of view of children themselves. Focusing on youngsters between the ages of about six and twelve, this is history “from the bottom up.” It highlights the transformations of play that have occurred over the last 200 years, paying attention not only to the activities of the cultural elite but to those of working-class men and women, to slaves, and to Native Americans. In addition, the author considers the findings, observations, and theories of numerous social scientists along with those of fellow historians.

Chudacoff concludes that children's ability to play independently has attenuated over time and that in our modern era this diminution has frequently had unfortunate consequences. By examining the activities of young people whom marketers today call “tweens,” he provides fresh historical depth to current discussions about topics like childhood obesity, delinquency, learning disability, and the many ways that children spend their time when adults aren’t looking.

Genres: Parenting, History, Nonfiction, Reference, American History

269 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 2007

Reviews

[Lizette Vega · Rating 4 out of 5]

Children at Play covers several decades and three groups of children: White, Black and Native Americans. The book is an overview of how children played, where they enjoyed their antics and what they used to create their imaginary world.

However, Chudacoff does not portray religious groups in a good light by stating that their overly staunch rhetoric on the gospel and hell appear overboard and stifling for their children. Even so, the author does state that history shows that Puritan groups did love their children lavishly.

Also, the book feels heavy with several quotes from both known and unknown people and their diary entries about their childhood play.

Children at play is an interesting read.

[Dory Ford · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would give this 3.5 stars if I could. It's an interesting history but I don't think we get much out of it besides the obvious. Adults are generally the enemy of children and there have been contested grounds upon the nature of play throughout the centuries. And the nature of play has changed as technology has changed. It's still worthwhile book but you could probably find something better.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chudacoff’s work is a comprehensive analysis of the culture of children’s play in the United States from the days of the Puritans up until the present. He neatly presents his analysis in terms of the interplay of four “contexts” that have affected play culture through the centuries: environment (urban, rural, indoors/outdoors), material culture (toys and children’s literature, including comic books), peer interaction (who children play with, solitary play, playing “online” with friends) and the degree of freedom from adult intervention. The book is broken up into chapters based on dates: pre-1800, 1800-1850, 1850-1900, 1900-1950 and 1950-present. Although the subdivision of the history of play culture into roughly 5-decade periods is in fact somewhat arbitrary (which Chudacoff readily admits, as evidenced by his own data), it is an effective way to divide up what would otherwise be a difficult-to-read work. The writing definitely leans towards the academic in style (loads of supporting quotes from primary sources and extensive endnotes), while also obviously aiming at a general audience in its presentation. But disregarding the chronology, the four “contexts” provide a very useful way to understand how children’s play has changed through time (I have to wonder though: would this analysis derived as it is from American history hold shape in the context of another culture? I am sure there is plenty of anthropological works written on this topic. It’d have been nice if Chudacoff provided some reference to them, but not a big deal). Chudacoff tries to identify successive periods in the history of children’s play characterized different levels of each “context”. But after reading the whole book, I find it easier to think of this history as a general shift in the balance between the four “contexts” as they spiral around a central helix of competing parental controls and children’s push-back, and where the timing of contextual shifts being less important than the overall impression of what that shift means for contemporary society. Disregarding children’s play culture the Puritan period, which Chudacoff characterizes as severely controlled by adults (or at least they try to) and permeated by children’s guilt over the supposed “sinfulness” of their uncontrollable desire to play at idle pursuits, my impression of the history of children’s play in the US after reading this book is this: 1) beginning in the mid-20th Century, play has increasingly become equated with manufactured toys, i.e. most play is no longer purely imaginary role-playing incorporating found objects or “toys” made by the child him or herself, and that this is largely due to the efforts of toy marketers to increase sales by appealing directly to kids (with allowances, and busy parents guilt-tripped about not giving enough attention to their kids); 2) there has been a “shift toward formal rather than ad hoc play-sites”, i.e. children don’t “roam” the countrywide or the city street and alleyways anymore, but instead play in highly supervised environments (indoors, on playgrounds or at commercial enterprises like Chuck-E-Cheese) mostly because of adults’ concern for their safety; 3) adults have always tried to direct children’s play towards the useful purposes of socialization, education and/or exercise intended to benefit the child’s health, safety and future prospects (personally, as a parent I have mostly tried to ensure that my kids’ toys have some semblance of educational value); and 4) play directed by adults has always been less fun for children than doing what they aren’t allowed to do, going where they aren’t supposed to go and just breaking the rules to see what happens. Play culture has changed in significant ways over the centuries, and usually to the chagrin of parents and other adults, but I think we can always count on children’s penchant for testing boundaries to show through, no matter how it is shaped by the “contexts” of environment, material culture, peer interaction and adult intervention. An important lesson this book may have for parents is that if you do want to guide how and with whom and what your child plays, try not to make it so obvious.

[Isaac Lord · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of nice diary and memoir quotation, but fundamentally repetative, and not particularly revelatory: Adults and kids have always had a conflicted view of what constitutes "proper" play. Rich/middle class children have always had more opportunity for play than poor children or enslaved children. Boys have always had more freedom than girls. Quotes from Puritan sermons. A general outline of the Child Guidance and Social Control movements of the teens and 20s. Yawn.

I am similarly unimpressed with his conclusion: after frankly describing the horrors of contemporary childhood (less than an hour a week of unstructured outside play, nauseating amounts of television, etc.), he assures us that children have "always" found ways to create their own worlds unmediated by adults, and will continue to do so. I was disappointed in the flimsiness of his optimism, as neither the book nor the evidence at hand would suggest this is the case.

He does, though, to his credit as an author of pop social history, integrate narratives from enslaved children, Native children, and girls to a much greater extent than is usual in covering a "general" topic like this. Turns out there are these great WPA interviews with former slaves and Indian adults, recalling the child-culture they grew up in. Worth reading just for that, really. Maybe I'll go looking for more specific histories of these children in the future.

[Richard Subber · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is obviously written by an academic, with much too much duplication of statements about main points and conclusions. There is lots of detail about demographic, social, commercial, economics and intellectual trend changes that affected the evolution of children's play. A principal observation is that children are less creative in play now than they have been in the past, because toys "come with instructions" and because manufacturers work hard to "brand" toys with connections to current media that define how the toys should be used.
Read more at
http://richardsubber.com/book-blog/

[Natalie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a resourceful and reoccurring reference I use for my education classes and papers. While it can be repetitive, it has a massive amount of useful information about the topic of children's play throughout history. It isn't necessarily a read for just anyone though, due to its dense information and formal approach.

[Salem · Rating 1 out of 5]

Although interested in the premise, I couldn't make it through the preface and the introduction (or the first paragraphs of chapter one) to even find out if Chudacoff ever gives a good answer to his own questions. A good example of publish-or-perish scholarship, but not a great read.

[Erendira]

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