Book Reviews

or anxiety that seem to run through time”(p. 22). Thus, Playful Visions describes play
as a perpetually contested space that wasand still remains “inseparably bound to
broader media and technology cultures”(p. 223). In particular, it shows how contemporary concerns over media spectatorship arise from longstanding culturaldebates around visuality that helped define
modern childhood.
This multilayered study presents
unique and compelling optics on thegenerative interplay between childhood,material, and media cultures. By deftly
weaving together widely varied source
material, eloquently engaging how cultural ideas echo across history, and rigorously contextualizing its histories withincultural theories, Bak paints a profound,holistic picture of the complex cultural formations that coalesce around play, provingthat charting these cultural constellations
around optical toys has a distinctive merit.
While Playful Visions is clearly a mustread for scholars invested in the cultural
history of optical toys, its insightful andnuanced optics will also appeal to anyone
interested in how playful visions frame theinterconnected anxieties and optimisms
pertaining to childhood, material, andmedia cultures.
—J. Rey Lee, Cascadia College, Bothell, WA

Playing with History: AmericanIdentities and Children’s
Consumer Culture
Molly Rosner
New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University
Press, 2021. Contents, introduction,conclusion, acknowledgments, notes,index, and photographs. 193 pp. $29.95,
paper. ISBN: 9781978822078
In Playing with History: American Identities and Children’s Consumer Culture,
Molly Rosner examines how children’s
toys, dolls, and books (collectively referredto as didactic amusements) promote aparticular version of American history.
While many might consider these didactic amusements frivolous, Rosner conveys
the weight of the political and ideological messages sold to children during thetwentieth century. The book begins by
exploring the early days of the toy industry
followed by four case studies from different eras in which she focuses on a specificartifact of childhood to examine messages
about America and race, class, gender, andethnicity.
In chapter 1, “Made in America: The
Rise of the American Toy Industry,” Rosner considers how the toy industry created toys and marketing that contributed
to gender and racial roles in the decadesaround the turn of the twentieth century.
The section entitled “The Marketing andDistributing of Class and Racial Roles”
provides a critical examination of urban
growth, the infrastructure of toy production and transportation, and Christmas.
Rosner considers how department stores
and Christmas window displays added
to class divisions. Children on the streets
were able to participate only as voyeurs ofthe trappings inside. The section entitled“Racialized Toys during Jim Crow” provides a critical analysis of the lack of toysthat represented Black children by juxtaposing white character toys with Blackcharacter toys, as well as the limited

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P L AYavailability of Black dolls. Rosner argues
that “these toys conveyed to children thatcertain races and ethnicities were meant tobe subservient, disposable, and abusable”(p. 22). A compelling point that Rosnermakes is how the toy industry reinforced
the notion that people of different races
stay within their own group.
Chapter 2, “Dolling Up History: 1930s
Antique Dolls and the Clark Doll Study,”
explores the Doll Show of 1938, which washosted by a group of wealthy women in
Manhattan, New York. During the show,
more than two thousand handmade andantique dolls were displayed. The show
was free and provided an escape fromthe Shantytowns scattered across the cityduring the 1930s. The organizers yearned
for a simpler time and often criticizedindustrialization, mass immigration, andurbanization. Rosner calls attention to theirony of this pastime because the women
were participating in a feminist activity.
They used the dolls to educate people
and involve themselves in public life and,
therefore, gained power and influence.
Rosner examines the Orange andLandmark history books published during the Cold War in chapter 3 and looks
at the selling of multicultural girlhood
through the lens of the American Girl Dollfrom 1986 to present in her fifth chapter. Iagree with the author that the “AmericanGirl doll and book collection represents
perhaps the most serious and successfulattempt in twentieth-century American
culture to use dolls and books to teachchildren through history” (p. 119). However, studies of American Girl, like Barbie,
often fall flat because there is only so muchto say about these artifacts and most of
it seems to have been said. To bring thestudy of American Girls up to present day,it might be useful to consider adult playand social media.
In chapter 4, “Family Fun for Everyone? Freedomland, U.S.A., 1960–1964,”
Rosner looks at Freedomland, an amusement park located in the Bronx for a briefperiod. Freedomland featured exhibits,
rides, shops, and performances representing landmark American events likethe Chicago Fire of 1871 and stagecoachrobberies. Rosner notes, “by creating aliteral miniature nation, which required
the purchase of tickets for entry, it madeconsumer citizenship the primary modeof engagement with U.S. history for bothchildren and adults; and by re-creating
and miniaturizing the past for spectacle,
it attempted to make the tumultuous,
violent, conflicted past controllable andsimpler to digest” (p. 85). The chapter
may have benefitted from further exploration of how Freedomland, like manyother places of amusements, portrayed
women and gender roles. The park hosted
a “Most Watchable Girl” contest held by
the American Society of Girl Watchers,
dating games, and appearances by Miss
Wool of America. One might also argue
that Freedomland gave between two thousand and three thousand people work,
including such positions as pretzel bending, seal keeping, doughnut rolling, andcarousel-horse jeweler. Perhaps by further
exploring the gimmicky spectacle of it all,we can gain an understanding of counterculture.
Playing with History is well written
and organized in such a way that it demonstrates how to use artifacts of childhood
to approach the study of American history.
In Rosner’s conclusion, she demands that

Book Reviews“it is not enough to diversify productlines” and that “such representations will
not necessarily teach children about theirown experiences of discrimination or systematic inequalities in the world aroundthem” (p. 148). This call to action is oneof the most promising aspects of the book.
Rosner invites the reader to be an active
participant and observer of childhood
artifacts, and everyone from scholars ofplay to toy industry professionals to guardians can benefit from this message.
—Michelle Parnett-Dwyer, The Strong,Rochester, NY

Play like a Feminist
Shira Chess
Cambridge, MA: 2020.
Acknowledgments, appendix, notes,and index. 184 pp. $26.95, cloth. ISBN:
9780262044387
Playing like a Feminist begins with twoaims: to introduce gamers to feminism
and feminists to games. Chess argues
that considering feminism will allow
gamers to embrace equality and improve
video games. Additionally, encouraging
feminists to rethink the value of play can
unlock the resistant potential of leisureand playful experiences. While the bookis unlikely to connect with gamers unfamiliar with feminism, it is the second aim,
addressed to feminists, where the book ismost successful.
Chess begins by describing the complicated relationship between play andgirlhood, where doing things “like a girl”
often means doing things poorly. Chessacknowledges intersectionality involvedin considering what it might mean to “playlike a woman.” It is this question of how
women play, or how might they play, thatsets up Chess’s productive combination ofgame, feminist, and leisure studies.
Chess encourages feminists to playgames and argues for the importanceof leisure in discussions of equality. She
feels feminists should advocate for equality in play in the same way they advocate
for equality in the workplace, education,and health care. Play is liberating. It is not
frivolous but rather leads to a fulfilled life.
For Chess, this means play is somethingthat should be encouraged and advocated.
Chess illustrates the disparity thatsurrounds play and leisure. Play is privileged. It belongs to those with the time andresources to partake. Leisure for womentends to be structured, productive, andcontained. Chess looks to temporalities
to imagine a more egalitarian and freer
type of leisure. Recognizing the restrictive nature of normative notions of time,
Chess explains how modern technology
allows people small escapes from theirnormative timelines into places of play.
Smartphone users can play mobile gamesin the “between” moments which would
not traditionally involve leisure. These
nonproductive interruptions illustrate thefreeing potential of play.
Feminists should not only advocate
for play, but they should also consider
using play in their activism. Chess explains
how play can be a vehicle for feminist protest. They look to the power of laughter todisrupt. Playing can work to attack institutional structures. In the same way, feminists playing games can challenge toxic
gamer culture and a game industry built213