An Interdisciplinary Study of Children’s Culture and Society from the Viewpoint of Their Artifacts in Modern Japan

Keywords

modern Japan, view on children, children’s society

Objectives

The Tada Collection (known as the “Toys of the Times”), housed at the National Museum of Ethnology, is an archive of more than 50,000 different kinds of child-related objects, mostly toys, that spans from the Edo Period to the years following WWII. These objects vividly illustrate how the people and society of each era perceived children. However, in modern times toys and other child-related objects have become marketed as consumed commodities, and thus the lack of remaining specimens makes it difficult to understand their true nature. The Tada Collection holds special value, because it serves as a rare example of a comprehensive assortment of child-related goods.
In this study, specialists from various fields, such as specialist in children’s behavior, art historians, toy researchers, historians, folklorists, cultural geographers, and conservation scientists, assembled to examine the collection. The materials will be analyzed from various angles and from a broad perspective to understand better the entire collection. In addition, the collection will be used to provide a specific and detailed portrayal of the true state of the culture and the society of children in modern Japan. This is a topic that is only vaguely understood. Based on the results of the analysis, an up-to-date view of children will be proposed, and an exhibition organized to present this new view to the general public.

Research Results

Our study group met over a period spanning three-and-a-half years for a comprehensive inquiry aimed at elucidating the sources and formative processes behind views on children in modern Japan. This investigation was based on an examination of artifacts that closely bind together different classes of society through a variety of threads, including production, distribution, consumption, and utilization. In addition to clarifying the formative processes behind the development of children’s society and culture in modern Japan, we were also interested in hunting for clues that would help us identify yet another “modern Japan” that does not readily appear in the research literature.
　
The study group met for tasks that included surveys chiefly comprising careful examinations of the artifacts in comparable collections from different regions across Japan. As an outcome of that work, it was demonstrated that artifacts not only were useful in shedding light on life for children but also possessed hidden potential as resources capable of exposing another side to the history of modern Japan.
　
The resources held by the National Museum of Ethnology, for example, include many toys that reflect the social conditions that prevailed in their day. However, they also provide a glimpse into something that the literature alone does not readily yield: namely, the outlook that people had on life in each period. From the second half of the 1920s through the 1930s, Japanese society popularized imagery of children as pure and innocent. That imagery was fused with catchphrases that promoted peace and friendship and accordingly spawned events that were aimed at transforming the public mood into a national strategy. Some of this has even shown up in the artistic designs or patterns used in board and card games such as Menko, Sugoroku, and Karuta. Although even children’s toys can be swept up by nationalistic fervor during times of international isolation or heightened xenophobia, the Disney cartoon characters that symbolized Japan’s enemy, the U.S., during World War II were displayed in wartime propaganda films dressed as Japanese soldiers singing patriotic songs. Even as anti-American sentiment reached its peak, many children’s toys still reflected a civilian admiration for American culture. Ordinary citizens had mixed feelings about America, a nation that could not be fully explained with simplified imagery, and children’s toys offered a glimpse into that ambivalence.
　
Through this joint study, we developed a perspective that extended beyond the scope of modern education theory and practice within schools and other settings and integrated discrete aspects of public and private life in general for children in Japan. This approach provided insights into the possibility of presenting a fresh view of Japanese society in modern times. However, our study also highlighted a need for additional resource surveys in view of the fact that the Tada Collection was basically put together by one individual with his own perspectives and thus comprises content that reflects a set of personal tastes.