H26.946

Toy train, engine of metal, mail & baggage coach & two passenger coaches of wood. made by cabinet maker employed by Mr. Taylor's father an Oakland furniture dealer, Dec. 25,1877. The engine marked "Lawrence," called "Oakland to Boston Express." From the History Information Station: Object: Toy train. Tin engine, wooden coal car and passenger coach. "Charlie, Lawrence, O & B RR Co., Oakland to Boston." History: This toy steam-engine train was made by an Oakland cabinetmaker for his employer's children, as a Christmas present in 1877. You can see the children's names, Charlie and Lawrence, painted on the train. It was the grown-up Charlie, Mr. Charles Taylor, who gave the train to the Oakland Public Museum in 1936. Woodworkers and tinsmiths have been building toy trains ever since engineers started building real trains in the 1820s. People of all ages were fascinated by trains. Trains were the fastest moving inanimate objects ever seen; they symbolized a transportation revolution that changed peoples lives by expanding communication, settlement, and trade. Victorian Childhood The 19th century saw the birth of many of our modern ideas about childhood and childcare. In the 1700s, American children were thought of as little adults, and were expected to dress and behave like adults almost from the day they could walk. They had some games and toys, but play wasn't particularly important. Some people thought children were dangerous, since they were too young to know right from wrong and were thus susceptible to sin. But in the 1800s, the Enlightenment ideas underlying the American Revolution made people think differently about children. If all people were created equal, then children must be the most innocent of all. Gradually their clothes grew less formal and constrictiive, and--if they weren't hard at work in mines or factories--they were encouraged to play more. By the 1860s children were seen as positively angelic, and mother's role was no longer to train them but to nurture their natural goodness. These positive ideas about children led eventually to the founding of child welfare agencies and the abolition of child labor.