Child’s Play: Propaganda Puzzles, War Games, and Children’s Books from The Wolfsonian–FIU

December 12, 2007–January 22, 2008
Steven and Dorothea Green Library @ 11200 SW 8th Street

Books, magazines, board games, puppets, and puzzles produced during the early twentieth century by both democratic and totalitarian countries portrayed war as “child’s play.” They were a means of enlisting even the youngest members of a nation in the broader cause of the war effort and build in the allegiance of future adult citizens to the state. In some books, children are depicted as actual combatants; in others, young readers are encouraged to actively support the war through participation in scrap drives or by saving coins to buy victory stamps. Board games and puzzles might also serve to train children in the strategies and tactics of combat or to glorify national heroes.

Child’s Play, an installation of Wolfsonian objects presented at Florida International University’s Green Library, represented many nations, including Great Britain, Germany, France, the United States, the Netherlands, and the Soviet Union. Together, the works on view highlighted the active role that graphic design plays as an instrument of political persuasion, and invited viewers to compare shared imagery produced by countries with very different political systems.

Many of the objects were donated by Pamela K. Harer, whose collection comprises more than one hundred children’s books, primarily from the First and Second World Wars and the Cold War era. The Wolfsonian also thanks Mitchell Wolfson, Jr. for generous loans.