Backyard Desperadoes: American Attitudes Concerning Toy Guns in the Early Cold War Era

In February 1950, an article appeared in the New York Times Magazine poking mild fun at children's mania for the American West. It asserted that "today's youth considers himself practically nude if he is sent out into the streets in anything less than a pair of floppy sheepskins strapped over his roll-bottomed denims, a colored bandanna knotted loosely about the throat of his piped sateen or gabardine shirt, and a wide-brimmed hat settled dashingly about his ears." Yet the craze went beyond the desire for clothing items related to the Old West. The commentary also declared that "no 8-year old believes himself capable of crossing an apartment-house sidewalk without the aid of spurs, and he would think it risky to leave his porch without a pair of matched horse pistols slung from a tooled-leather cartridge belt studded with brilliants" (Sharnik 16). The cowboy and his gun reigned supreme in the imaginations and play of American children in the early postwar era. In fact, for many adults, the cowboy and other frontier figures served as comforting reminders of a mythic American past in an era fraught with uncertainties. The notion of the cowboy as a quintessential American hero was not new to the postwar era. Since the days of the nineteenth century the appropriation and romanticization of the cowboy in various media forms had catapulted the figure to iconic status. The cowboy now rode across the Cold War landscape as the embodiment of manliness, democracy, individualism, and capitalism. Popular culture promoted the mythological version of the cowboy and the frontier that stood in stark contrast to the anxiety-ridden culture of the Cold War, which drew on, found support in, and perpetuated the myth of the Old West. More importantly, the culture of the Cold War helped to create a new meaning for the toy guns wielded by youngsters engaging in western play. Specifically, it invested the form of amusement with special meaning while simultaneously affecting parenting styles. Parents' attitudes toward their pistol-packin' boys reveal the various layers of their own anxieties concerning the masculinity of their sons. The discourse about toy guns occurring in popular sources readily available to the general American public also exposes the uneasiness pervading the American popular consciousness regarding gender roles, and it sheds light on the roots of America's gun cultures. Ultimately, the anxious climate of the Cold War, punctuated by the threat of instantaneous nuclear annihilation, challenges to traditional gender roles, and the standoff between communism and democracy created an environment in which a youth gun culture could flourish among white male youths. In the early atomic age, children's play had an important role in reclaiming American values in the face of the communist menace. Forms of play drew comments from numerous professionals. From the Parent and Child section of the New York Times Magazine, Dorothy Barclay wrote that "play means a great deal more ... to most of the specialists who work with children. To them it represents the child's way of learning, a vital process by which he grows up." In play, she noted, "Youngsters experiment with life and their own reactions to it; relieve some of their fears and tensions; re-create the world as they know it or shape a new and happier one where they can be the head men, where they can boss or be babied, threatened or comforted." Children's amusements are significant, Barclay argued, because they are a learning process that facilitates development of social skills. If play is fundamental to development, then objects used in play are of primary importance. Therefore, "parents can start thinking of toys not as bright ornaments for a youngster's room but as materials for . . . expression" (Barclay 59). Moreover, play provides the means through which children interpret the world, as well as the method they employ to reflect their experiences. If imitation guns are acceptable toys and violent play is sanctioned, then children might very well come to understand that violence is acceptable and even a mundane part of everyday existence in America. …