Naples Florida Weekly
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Exhibit features “Florida Girls & Boys & Their Toys”




Frederick Keith and his father Edison, of Sarasota, 1925. COURTESY PHOTO

Frederick Keith and his father Edison, of Sarasota, 1925. COURTESY PHOTO

Kewpie dolls.

Hula hoops.

Slinkys.

Go-carts.

Toys sure have changed over the decades.

Years ago, toys were simpler, and didn’t involve screens or computer circuitry.

A simple stick with a replica of a horse’s head at one end was a horse you “rode.”

All you needed was a coiled piece of wire for a Slinky, or a thin, plastic circle for a hula hoop, and with some imagination and ingenuity, you had a toy that provided hours of fun.

“Florida Girls & Boys & Their Toys,” on exhibit at the Center for Performing Arts in Bonita Springs through July 28, is a mostly pictorial record of the state’s children and their toys over the past 130 plus years. It’s part of the traveling exhibits program from the Museum of Florida History.

In addition to photos, the exhibit includes actual toys, including robots, plastic soldiers, yo-yos, building blocks, a Kewpie doll and the game Twister. An original Slinky, “the walking spring toy,” is also on display, along with its box, which has directions printed on its side on how to “walk a Slinky downstairs,” “play with Slinky with hands,” “walk Slinky down an incline or slope” and “bounce Slinky up and down.”

Children with the hula hoops in the 1950s. COURTESY PHOTOS

Children with the hula hoops in the 1950s. COURTESY PHOTOS

The earliest photo seems to be Gilman Joseph Winthrop of Tallahassee, sitting on his hobby-horse in December 1883. His frock is topped with a large lace collar.

The most recent photo, shot in a Hollywood park in 1971, shows a group of boys playing with Tinker Toy pieces. (If you look closely, it sure looks like a Stingray bicycle with a banana seat on the grass behind them.)

As an introductory placard explains, “Though toys have changed over time — plastics have replaced metals and corners aren’t as sharp — they still occupy a very important place in our lives. The photos in this exhibit tell a visual story about how lifestyles and photography in Florida has changed over the years.”

Kids of today may look at toys of the past with curiosity or puzzlement, while their parents and grandparents remember them fondly. (The children will likely flock to the more than three-foot-tall replica of Olaf the Snowman from “Frozen,” made with Lego bricks — a famous cartoon figure recreated with toys.)

Leesburg boys with their go cart (front), hand car and tricycle, probably 1910s.

Leesburg boys with their go-cart (front), hand car and tricycle, probably 1910s.

It’s an exhibit various generations can enjoy, says Susan Bridges, president of Centers for the Arts. (Ms. Bridges, who grew up in Chicago in the ’50s, says her favorite toys were “scissors, pencils, crayons and paper when I was kid. I shaped, cut, drew, colored, made things and folded them into three dimensions.”)

“Most of our seniors are looking and saying, ‘Oh wow, I remember…’ and reminiscing,” she says of the exhibit. “It opens up a dialogue between parents, grandparents and children. Grandparents are saying to the children, ‘I used to play with these. I played the same kind of games (but) you play them on the phone or on the computer.’”

Boys with Tinker Toy pieces in a Hollywood park, 1971.

Boys with Tinker Toy pieces in a Hollywood park, 1971.

But sometimes, she confesses, the children who look at the exhibit can’t comprehend how the old toys worked.

She recalls the look on a child’s face when an instructor at the center started talking about how she played jump rope and would jump Double Dutch.

As she described it, “The girl looked at her as if she had two heads,” Ms. Bridges says, laughing at the memory. Maybe she was wondering: who would want to play with a piece of rope?

One man, looking at the green plastic toy soldiers in a display case, recalled how he’d played with similar toy soldiers. His own father had also had a set of toy soldiers, but his were made of metal. (Children today play with digital soldiers on a computer screen.)

She overheard another father telling his son about a robot he’d had when he was a boy, and then talking about the yo-yos they saw under glass. The boy mentioned he had a yo-yo, and the two agreed that when they got home, the father would show his son the yo-yo tricks he knew how to do.

Children with metal pails and a dachshund on Long Beach, near Panama City, 1956.

Children with metal pails and a dachshund on Long Beach, near Panama City, 1956.

There are at least three photos with carts in them — one being pulled by a goat. And lots of photos of girls with dolls, which never seem to go out of style.

A 1968 photo shows a blonde girl in Tallahassee in a flower print dress having milk and cookies with her Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls.

An earlier photo, also taken in Tallahassee, portrays a doll party in the 1920s. Sixteen girls and their dolls pose in front of a house. A girl in the middle of the group is almost dwarfed by her a doll in a bold striped outfit.

There are Christmas photos too: two brothers in Fort Meade with their new train set, shot in the 1890s, and a little girl surrounded by toys in Tallahassee in 1895, sitting in front of a giant Christmas tree that takes up most of the photo.

“It’s a nice little show, perfect for us,” says Ms. Bridges. “The conversations and dialogues are universal between kids and their families. Anyone can relate to these toys. We are a very multi-generational arena here,” she says, noting that parents and grandparents bring children to the center to take classes in art, music and dance.

 

 

“(Looking at this exhibit) is something that they can do together and have new conversations. It’s great to see kids and parents and grandparents talking to each other. It’s a way to look back into history.

“They’re toys they all can relate to,” she says. “What kid doesn’t relate to a truck? It doesn’t matter what era it’s from.” ¦

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