Hobbies And Interests
Psychology
The push along toy stimulates imagination and invites effort. At first, children want to push the toy across the ground; this is a universal behavior. A child wants to be the actual impulse of action when playing with a push along toy. His basic desire is to imitate the world around him. Historians believe this is why the push along toy shows up in every culture and civilization throughout the world. As a child grows older, his play becomes more individualized and influenced by his own culture.
The Ancient Push Along Toy
Many push along toys were made to resemble animals important to a particular civilization of people. The horse was a natural development in any primitive culture where the horse is of economic importance. In the British Museum, a wooden horse, from Oxyrhynchus, Egypt, dates from the Roman occupation, and once stood on four wheels.
There have been other animals either with wheels under their bellies or seated on a platform that has wheels. Two white limestone animal toys were found, a porcupine and a lion from Persia, 1100 BC; both animals are seated on a platform with wheels. A molded chariot was found in a tomb at Amanthus, Cyprus, dating from the sixth century. With wheels underneath, a wooden crocodile with a moveable jaw was found in Egypt, from c 1100 BC. A wooden tiger with inlaid glass eyes and a moveable jaw with bronze teeth, found from Thebes, c 1000 BC, is believed to be a push along toy.
17th to 18th Century
Playthings were too expensive for the general population; as a result not very many of the toys from this era survived. The push along toys were individually handmade, usually of wood, clay or metal. The very wealthy had toys made of silver and porcelain. Children did not have many playthings because they were regarded as miniature grownups and were expected to grow up fast.
19th Century
By the first half of the 19th century, jigsaws and chromolithography were invented. This made it possible for manufacturers to turn out toys with a crude assembly line. These developments also made it possible to establish an export trade. Push along toys were developed with the interest of the times. A horse-drawn trolley and a circus wagon, both jigsaw-cut wood covered with lithographed paper, are two good examples from this era.
Tin and Cast-Iron
American toy manufactures showed a preference for items that were small-scale versions of things actually used in society. In the late 1800s, tinplate and cast-iron toys were made in the likeness of horse-drawn stage carriages, horse-drawn circus wagons and band wagons, horse-drawn fire-ladder wagons, and fire-engine pumper wagons, all of which were push along toys. Into the early 1900s, cast-iron locomotives and touring cards started as push along toys and then were developed further into toys that could be propelled to move without pushing them. Most of the toy industry started in New York City and by mid-century the industry was concentrated in the Connecticut River Valley. After 1880, the German manufactures rapidly obtained a major portion of the world tin and cast-iron toy market. France was not as successful, but did develop the term, "carpet runners," for their unpowered trackless toy trains that were push along toys. Because of the weight, nearly all cast-iron toys were designed to be used as push along toys.