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Playtime: A History of Australian Childhood
The first history of childhood play and imagination in pre-war Australia
This groundbreaking book is a history of children's play and imagination in Australia between 1890 and the Second World War. It is a story about the generations that grew up at a time when nation and empire were being reimagined amid the globalising currents of war, technology and trade. Theirs were faces that would remain forever young in monochrome film, and whose thoughts and dreams would be preserved between the timeless blue lines of the modern school exercise book.
Playtime is built around six imaginative worlds – amateur journalism, bird loving, war and adventure, dolls, the future, and monsters and fairies. It brings these worlds, and the voices of children, to life, exploring an incredible array of children's artefacts and seeing the social history of Australia through a new lens.
'In this brilliant study, Emily Gallagher reveals childhood imagination and play as at once traditional and modern, conservative and forward-looking – a realm of joy, fantasy and fear entangled with the adult world, yet a kingdom that children also claim as their own. Playtime is a book of striking richness, originality and creativity that will change your understanding of the possibilities of Australian social history.' —Frank Bongiorno, author of Dreamers and Schemers
'Beautifully written, Playtime is an innovative history of children's imaginative play that takes children seriously in their own right and on their own terms.' —Hannah Forsyth, author of Virtue Capitalists
'A joy to read, this landmark study demonstrates the significance of children's creative play, restive imaginations and slumbered dreamworlds. Emily Gallagher has written an instant classic of Australian history, according her young protagonists a central place in the national narrative … Playtime showcases a treasure trove of sources to tell vital stories about social relations, change and continuity.' —Simon Sleight, author of Young People and the Shaping of Public Space in Melbourne, 1870–1914
'It's not often that one gets to read a history that speaks to one's most private memories, one's sense of self. Gallagher writes with an elegant assurance … readers of Playtime will find resonances with their own memories and experience.'—Inside Story
'Emily Gallagher's superbly realised, often haunting study, draws the reader deep in the world of the child's imagination in those years before TV and "teenagers" ... This might be an academic publication, but it's a thoroughly engaging piece of imaginative historical writing, always thoughtful and quite often moving.'—The Age
Shortlisted in the 2026 ACT Literary Awards
This groundbreaking book is a history of children's play and imagination in Australia between 1890 and the Second World War. It is a story about the generations that grew up at a time when nation and empire were being reimagined amid the globalising currents of war, technology and trade. Theirs were faces that would remain forever young in monochrome film, and whose thoughts and dreams would be preserved between the timeless blue lines of the modern school exercise book.
Playtime is built around six imaginative worlds – amateur journalism, bird loving, war and adventure, dolls, the future, and monsters and fairies. It brings these worlds, and the voices of children, to life, exploring an incredible array of children's artefacts and seeing the social history of Australia through a new lens.
'In this brilliant study, Emily Gallagher reveals childhood imagination and play as at once traditional and modern, conservative and forward-looking – a realm of joy, fantasy and fear entangled with the adult world, yet a kingdom that children also claim as their own. Playtime is a book of striking richness, originality and creativity that will change your understanding of the possibilities of Australian social history.' —Frank Bongiorno, author of Dreamers and Schemers
'Beautifully written, Playtime is an innovative history of children's imaginative play that takes children seriously in their own right and on their own terms.' —Hannah Forsyth, author of Virtue Capitalists
'A joy to read, this landmark study demonstrates the significance of children's creative play, restive imaginations and slumbered dreamworlds. Emily Gallagher has written an instant classic of Australian history, according her young protagonists a central place in the national narrative … Playtime showcases a treasure trove of sources to tell vital stories about social relations, change and continuity.' —Simon Sleight, author of Young People and the Shaping of Public Space in Melbourne, 1870–1914
'It's not often that one gets to read a history that speaks to one's most private memories, one's sense of self. Gallagher writes with an elegant assurance … readers of Playtime will find resonances with their own memories and experience.'—Inside Story
'Emily Gallagher's superbly realised, often haunting study, draws the reader deep in the world of the child's imagination in those years before TV and "teenagers" ... This might be an academic publication, but it's a thoroughly engaging piece of imaginative historical writing, always thoughtful and quite often moving.'—The Age
Shortlisted in the 2026 ACT Literary Awards
315 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 16, 2025
About the author
Emily Gallagher
2 booksEmily Gallagher is a historian at the Australian National University. Her PhD thesis was awarded the Lyndall Ryan Thesis Prize in Australian Studies and the Serle Award in Australian History.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 13, 2025
This is a well-written study of Australian childhoods from the 1890s to WW2, drawing extensively on the words of children of the era. I was wondering if members of my own family would appear. They do not, but perhaps close - we do read the words of girls my maternal grandmother may have known (same niche religion in Sydney at the same time) and of boys who attended the same school as my father did, but a few decades before.
The era covered includes the start of radio and film, but children's entertainment is based on play and the written word, including student-produced school magazines which get an interesting chapter. Although there were shortages during the wars, toys become more common and diverse. Dolls and doll houses were favourites of girls, who created their own worlds that often modelled their lives to come. I had no idea that bird clubs were so popular in the first half the 20th century.
One minor criticism I would make is the occasional intrusion of 21st century academic perspectives into earlier eras. A 1910s writer for children is ticked off for discussing violence against nature but not against Indigenous Australians, when this kind of commentary was not common or expected until much later. And this happens before the book itself gives detailed consideration of Indigenous childhoods.
Although Indigenous and 'settler' children lived largely separate lives in this period there were crossovers. Early planes appeared in the drawings of Indigenous children, just as they fascinated other children. The bunyip jumped from Indigenous mythology into the imaginations of other Australian children, existing alongside more traditional European imaginary creatures.
While there was still much 'Britishness' among white Australians in this period, this book chronicles the connection their children were forming to Australia, and a culture that, while still strongly influenced by Europe, was becoming something distinctive.
The era covered includes the start of radio and film, but children's entertainment is based on play and the written word, including student-produced school magazines which get an interesting chapter. Although there were shortages during the wars, toys become more common and diverse. Dolls and doll houses were favourites of girls, who created their own worlds that often modelled their lives to come. I had no idea that bird clubs were so popular in the first half the 20th century.
One minor criticism I would make is the occasional intrusion of 21st century academic perspectives into earlier eras. A 1910s writer for children is ticked off for discussing violence against nature but not against Indigenous Australians, when this kind of commentary was not common or expected until much later. And this happens before the book itself gives detailed consideration of Indigenous childhoods.
Although Indigenous and 'settler' children lived largely separate lives in this period there were crossovers. Early planes appeared in the drawings of Indigenous children, just as they fascinated other children. The bunyip jumped from Indigenous mythology into the imaginations of other Australian children, existing alongside more traditional European imaginary creatures.
While there was still much 'Britishness' among white Australians in this period, this book chronicles the connection their children were forming to Australia, and a culture that, while still strongly influenced by Europe, was becoming something distinctive.
June 18, 2026
Finished Playtime and honestly found it pretty dry. I was hoping for something that really captured what made Australian childhood unique between the 1890s and WWII, but it never quite got there for me.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews