Off the Shelf

WHAT ARE WE READING + WATCHING?

“THIS BOOK GAVE ME INSIGHT INTO HOW MY KIDS ARE SEEING THE WORLD AND HOW SIMPLE THINGS ARE HELPING TO MOLD THEM.”

— MATT ELLIOTT, HEAD OF CREATIVE AND DIGITAL EXPERIENCE, THE HENRY FORD

The Design of Childhood: How the Material World Shapes Independent Kids

Matt Elliott, The Henry Ford’s head of creative and digital experience, speaks to the inspiration he draws from design critic Alexandra Lange’s exploratory book on how children’s playthings and physical surroundings affect their development.

Have you ever noticed how design influences our lives? The Design of Childhood by Alexandra Lange provides an in-depth look into how design and the things and items around us throughout our lives have a direct influence on our development and the way we see and think about the world.

From early childhood, the items we play and learn with — like wooden blocks and Lego bricks — and the way our homes and cities are designed influence and shape the development and interactions of all of us. As a designer myself, I am fascinated by how things such as simple toys or architecture, from the development of planned communities to the differences between local versus government-built play spaces, can shape our learning and behavior. Now as a parent, I try to give my daughters the best opportunities to learn and grow, allowing them as much free play as I can — even when I am thinking in my head that’s not the way to do it.

Lange shines light on the things that we often take for granted and experiences that we don’t always realize are working to shape us every day. This book gave me insight into how my kids are seeing the world and how simple things are helping to mold them, from collaborative learning spaces in schools to the evolution of playgrounds in the United States. As Massachusetts Emergency and Hygiene Association’s Kate Gannett Wells is quoted as saying in Lange’s book, “Playing in the dirt is the royalty of childhood.”

The Design of Childhood is one of those texts that has rapidly become a coffee-table book for me, enticing me to pick it up, randomly open it to a page and dive in.

Ellice Engdahl

Manager, Digital Collections & Content The Henry Ford

The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky and Death by Colson Whitehead

Colson Whitehead’s fiction covers topics ranging from the zombie apocalypse and slavery to elevator maintenance. In this nonfiction book, the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner recounts his unlikely adventures competing in the 2011 World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. Spoiler alert: He doesn’t win anything, but the reader is rewarded by Whitehead’s droll look into the world of highstakes poker.

Olivia Marsh

Program Manager, Educator Professional Development The Henry Ford

ARTLENS Gallery, The Cleveland Museum of Art ArtLens App available on Google Play and the App Store

Playing in museums isn’t always allowed, but at The Cleveland Museum of Art’s ARTLENS Gallery, play isn’t just encouraged — it’s how you engage with art. Guests can play immersive multisensory games with original artworks and even create their own masterpieces.

Although the gallery is currently closed, you can still experience it through the ArtLens App, which allows you to explore on-view works in the permanent collection both at the museum and elsewhere.

DID YOU KNOW? /

The Cleveland Museum of Art’s ArtLens for Slack, the channel-based messaging platform, was a finalist for a 2020 Fast Company Innovation by Design Award. The first rapid-response art exhibition app, ArtLens for Slack is designed for remote workspaces, letting co-workers create teambuilding exercises from their home offices using the museum’s collections for inspiration.

Wing Fong

Experience Design Project Manager The Henry Ford

The Way Things Work (1988) by David Macaulay

My copy of this wonderfully whimsical adventure into the inner workings of our most fundamental inventions is 33 years old now. While the newest edition reveals smartphones and drones, some things never change. The Way Things Work will make the mechanics of a zipper fun again and perhaps help you explain, with fascination, how a differential works during your next kid-sponsored Lego session.

WORD PLAY

The Benson Ford Research Center has a number of books, resources and archival content with playful undertones — from books on carousels, doll quilts and car games to a collection of coloring books. For help with access, write to research.center@ thehenryford.org.

BOOKS

The Carousel Keepers: An Oral History of American Carousels by Carrie Papa Here Today and Gone Tomorrow: The Story of World’s Fairs and Expositions by Suzanne Hilton Once Upon a Playground: A Celebration of Classic American Playgrounds, 1920-1975 by Brenda Biondo

Coney Island: The People’s Playground by Michael Immerso From Playgrounds to PlayStation: The Interaction of Technology and Play by Carroll Pursell The Maker Movement Manifesto: Rules for Innovation in the New World of Crafters, Hackers and Tinkerers by Mark Hatch

ARCHIVAL COLLECTIONS

Paper Doll Collection, 1850-2008 Consisting of both commercially produced and handmade dolls featuring fictional characters, celebrities, politicians and more. Coloring Book Collection, 1894-1990 Consisting of books containing line drawings, primarily for children to paint or color. Many are souvenirs of tourist sites or museums.

Exhibitions and World’s Fair Collection, 1848-1986 Consisting of a variety of ephemeral materials related to expositions and exhibitions, which were often forums for introducing new ideas.

ASK: HOW DID WORLD’S FAIRS ENCOURAGE PLAYFULNESS? ANSWER:

I recently visited the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair site, now part of Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens. I gawked at the still-standing central icon, the Unisphere, then searched for long-forgotten ruins scattered about.

Perhaps most striking were the still-existing pathways with their original concrete benches and drinking fountains. I could picture the people — the fairgoers — who had traveled from near and far to visit this temporary but extraordinary place, a place of wonder and delight, a place of enjoyment, leisure and playfulness — a world’s fair.

The 1964-65 World’s Fair was a failure in many respects. It never reached its projected attendance and almost went bankrupt. When most large nations declined to participate, smaller nations and American states filled the gap. The fair is probably best remembered as a showcase for American corporations, with an endless array of new products displayed inside midcentury modern structures.

Nowhere was the blend of design and playfulness more apparent than in the corporate attractions designed by Walt Disney and his Imagineers, especially Ford Motor Company’s Magic Skyway. Here guests embarked on “an exciting ride in a company-built convertible through a fantasy of the past and future in 12 minutes.” When Ford added new Mustang convertibles to the ride mere months before the fair’s opening, this only added to the anticipation and enjoyment.

Walt Disney remarked about the attraction: “It could never happen in real life, but we can achieve the illusion by creating an adventure so realistic that visitors will feel they have lived through a wonderful, once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

This could well sum up the overall appeal of world’s fairs.

— DONNA R. BRADEN, SENIOR CURATOR AND CURATOR OF PUBLIC LIFE DID YOU KNOW? / The Henry Ford has digitized more than 2,000 artifacts from its collections related to world’s fairs. Browse

items from multiple 1960s fairs here.

ONLINE Read about the Magic Skyway attraction on our blog

thf.org/explore/blog/ford-meets-disney-at-the

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