At first glance, Ala Krivov's doctoral research may look like child's play. And recently, when her work took her to The Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York, it was.
There, seated in the museum's archives, Krivov played with selected musical toys to discover how their sounds shaped the culture of childhood in the 1950s.
Her quest comes as part of the Don Wright Faculty of Music student's PhD dissertation, exploring the role of nursery rhymes during the Cold War, a period of rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union following the Second World War.
This chapter of her research studies how children engaged with existing toys and those developed in response to the ideological and political tensions between the two superpowers.
"I'm researching the different types of musical toys that were popular in the 1950s in the U.S., mostly focusing on the white suburban middle class, who were the primary consumers," Krivov said. "I'm studying the kinds of sounds they were making and how children were supposed to play with the toys to extract those sounds."
Solidarity and safety in solitary play
One thing was apparent to Krivov immediately. They don't make toys like they used to.
"You would never see something like that today," she said of their sturdy construction.
One of her favourites is Snoopy Sniffer, a wooden pull toy for toddlers made by Fisher Price.
Snoopy the Sniffer, a toddler pull toy made by Fisher Price and housed at The Strong Museum of National Play in Rochester, NY. (Submitted)
"It's a little dog they started making in 1938 right until 1991. It's fun and simple, but a very cute toy," Krivov said, enchanted by the dog's movable leather ears and spring-coiled wagging tail.
But what struck her most was how the dog 'behaved,' when pulled by its lead of red string.
"The wheels on this toy are inverted, not round, and because they are placed this way, the toy wobbles when it rolls on the wheels, and it makes sounds."
If the toy is pulled slowly, the sound is indiscernible. "But if you pull it faster, it starts making a barking, yapping sound like a small dog," she said.
"This is just one of the toys that demanded you play with it in a particular way to extract the desired sound."
Other toys, including a wind-up Donald Duck drummer, Mickey Mouse xylophone player and a banjo-playing clown, shared another common theme.
"Those toys are meant to be isolating, in that only one child can play with it," Krivov said. "It can't be shared with other people like a board game can. Even toys for older kids were mostly meant to keep them inside their home in a way similar to the politics of containment and the culture of domesticity."
Putting culture in context
The suburban family life of the 50s gave parents peace of mind. When children were inside playing with toys, they were safe from outside influences and perceived dangers parents feared, such as widespread communism or a surprise nuclear missile attack.
More practically, the toys also played a role they continue to hold in childhood today.
Robot toy from The Strong National Museum of Play. (Submitted)
"Musical sounds were part of an appeal, not just in isolating children from other children, but also from their parents. The parents would give the child the toy and they would entertain themselves, leaving the mothers free to do domestic chores and the father free to go to work."
While roles have expanded and times have changed, "the idea is the same today," Krivov said. "You give the toy to your baby or toddler; they entertain themselves and you don't have to play with them."
Other toys of the time reflected the space race, the ongoing competition between the Americans and Soviets to become the first nation to put a human into space.
"There were toy Martians and robots and things from other planets related to the idea of travelling 'out there' and about who or what might be there," Krivov said.
Finding reason for the rhyme
Growing up in Belarus, Krivov's experience with nursery rhymes is markedly different from what she's observed in North American culture.
"We did not have the same type of nursery rhymes. We had lullabies, but those were mostly contained to the first couple of years of life and you forgot them unless you keep singing them to younger siblings," she said.
"In English-speaking countries, the culture of nursery rhymes and songs goes beyond that. In schools, different words are put to existing melodies and rhymes. How many versions of 'Row, row, row your boat' have been sung with lots of different lyrics? And if you sing 'Mary had a little lamb' to one grownup, they sing it back to you."
The phenomenon sparked an interest in Krivov that continues to drive her research exploring how nursery rhymes can ideologically influence future generations across all levels of society.
"It's just a bigger culture here. I'm fascinated by this whole great musical inheritance people keep passing on to each other and to their children," she said.
