In Radical Play Rob Goldberg recovers a little-known history
of American children’s culture in the 1960s and 1970s by showing
how dolls, guns, action figures, and other toys galvanized and
symbolized new visions of social, racial, and gender justice. From a
nationwide movement to oppose the sale of war toys during the Vietnam
War to the founding of the company Shindana Toys by Black Power
movement activists and the efforts of feminist groups to promote and
produce nonsexist and racially diverse toys, Goldberg returns readers
to a defining moment in the history of childhood when politics,
parenting, and purchasing converged. Goldberg traces not only how
movement activists brought their progressive politics to the playroom
by enlisting toys in the era’s culture wars but also how the
children’s culture industry navigated the explosive politics and
turmoil of the time in creative and socially conscious ways.
Outlining how toys shaped and were shaped by radical visions,
Goldberg locates the moment Americans first came to understand the
world of toys—from Barbie to G.I. Joe—as much more than child’s
play.
