Toy iron with box

This Morphy-Richards toy iron was made in England in the 1950s, and is a convincing replica of the full-sized version. Complete with its original box, the iron features a metal hot plate, a rubber power cord, and a 'magic pilot light.'

This object materialises a form of play modelled on domestic duties and women’s work in the home, which was common for young girls in the first half of the twentieth century. As historian Gary Cross notes, toys had an important role to play in ‘teaching children to look forward to their eventual roles as men and women.’ The ‘road to the future,’ shaped by play, was sharply divided between the sexes, and girls' toys trained them ‘to become "modern" housewives and nurturing mothers, to cultivate personal relationships with friends, and to be charming and attractive to adults’ (Cross 1997, 50-51). Toys like irons, cookware and cleaning utensils represent the gendering of domestic work and point to some of the mechanisms by which young people were introduced to those social expectations

Reference

• Cross, Gary. 1997. Kids’ Stuff: Toys and the Changing World of American Childhood. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press.

See also

• Trewby, Mary. 1995. The Best Years of Your Life: A History of New Zealand Childhood. Auckland: Viking.
• Veart, David. 2014. Hello Girls & Boys! A New Zealand Toy Story. Auckland: Auckland University Press.