Black Toys, White Children: The Socialization of Children into Race and Racism, 1865-1940.

Author(s): Christopher P. Barton

Year: 2016

Summary

Race and racism are learned. While there has existed a myriad of social practices that have been used to socialize individuals into ideologies of race, this paper details the use of material culture directed at children, that is automata, costumes, games and toys. This paper focuses on material culture from the 1860s-1940s depicting Africans/African Americans. These objects produced, advertised and purchased by adults from children’s play served three purposes; 1) to cultivate ideologies of race and White racial superiority within children, 2) to ensure the continuation of racism and racist practices and 3) facilitate the construction of the "White Race" through the dehumanizing of non-White "Others."

Cite this Record

Black Toys, White Children: The Socialization of Children into Race and Racism, 1865-1940.. Christopher P. Barton. Presented at Society for Historical Archaeology, Washington, D.C. 2016 ( tDAR id: 434517)

Keywords

General
childhood Race Racism

Geographic Keywords
North America United States of America

Temporal Keywords
Postbellum

Spatial Coverage

min long: -129.199; min lat: 24.495 ; max long: -66.973; max lat: 49.359 ;

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 626