Small wonder
Subtitle: worlds in a box
By: [photographs by] David Levinthal, text by David Corey.
Contributors: Corey, David, 1944-; National Museum of American Art (U.S.)
Series: American scene ;; 4; American scene (Washington, D.C.) ;; 4.
Publisher: National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institute; Distributed by D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers
Published: 1996
Place of publication: Washington, D.C; New York, N.Y
Language: eng
Number of pages: 160
Subjects: Levinthal, David.; Photography, Artistic.; Toys in art.; Toys -- United States -- History -- 20th century.
Description: In Small Wonder: Worlds in a Box, David Levinthal takes as his subject a remarkable series of 1950s playsets manufactured by master toymakers Louis Marx and T. Cohn.

As a reflection of the obsessive play of the 1950s and the current nostalgia for such items, Levinthal's tabletop photography allows the reader a bird's-eye view of imaginary tableaux - Legionnaire Captain Gallant in the desert, Fort Apache and the Wild West, boy scouts camping in the woods, and travelers making a stop at a roadside Howard Johnson's. Playset vignettes are like stills from a movie of American popular culture's collective unconscious.

In the book's introduction, David Corey explores the history of playsets and their effect on American children in the 1950s.