Games of the 1840s

String two or three of these dolls together with small pine cones for a pretty garland to hang during celebration times. Handkerchief Doll Kit: Our Handkerchief Doll Kit includes one inch square white handkerchief, ribbon, lace, needle, embroidery floss, stuffing, instructions, and history.

This historical doll has been used for centuries to keep little girls quiet during church services and can be very easily made. Everything you need is included in the kit. Miss Poppet Doll Kit: Our Miss Poppet Doll Kit includes fabric, string, yarn, stuffing, embroidery floss, sewing needle, pattern, instructions, and history.

You only need to supply a pair of scissors and some time to make this historical doll. Miss Poppet is based on a similar surviving rag doll that is over years old. You can choose to make the doll as it is shown or as a replica doll without arms, hair, and bonnet. Finished size is approximately 13 inches tall. Pocket Folk Doll Kit: Our Pocket Folk Doll Kit includes muslin for two doll bodies, two different fabrics for the dresses, sewing needle, embroidery floss, stuffing for the bodies, instructions, and history.

These sweet dolls are fun to make and perfect for two young hands! This kit could serve as a sewing project for a young girl, a new mother, any crafter, or a folk doll collector. Each doll will be unique and can be played with as a toy, worn on a coat, set in a wreath, or placed on a mantle for decoration. Whatever their ultimate use, they may be a prized possession in the future. Spoon Doll Kit: Our Spoon Doll Kit includes a 4-inch wooden spoon, fabric for dress and arms, needle, floss for sewing, yarn for hair, stuffing, instructions, and history.

This is a popular American colonial doll craft for girls of all ages. This kit is also a nice project for colonial museum workshops, Girl Scout groups, elementary school classrooms, or for a parent-child activity.

The cute little doll also looks great in a seasonal wreath or as part of a table decoration. This collection is filled with nostalgic line drawings and interesting fun facts. Wooden Dominoes Game: Our Wooden Dominoes set contains 28 double-six wooden dominoes, rules for play, and comes packaged in a wooden storage box with sliding lid. By Historical Folk Toys. Dominoes have had shapes other than the flat, small pieces we now know. In Korea, dominoes were long, cube-shaped, bone-faced bamboo pieces.

In India, "pase" dice-looking dominoes are long rectangular, cubed dice with pointed ends and are made of bone or ivory prisms, marked on four sides. Dominoes may have originally been used as counters in dice games or in a method of fortune telling with dice. In the year A. The game of dominoes was a popular game during Colonial American times and continues to be a favorite American game.

Dominoes are as popular with adults as they are with children. Many Irish pubs feature domino games and sponsor domino contests. Dimensioned for a child's use, the drum is 10" in diameter and stands about 12" tall. The solid hardwood shell and hoops are cut and steam-bent at Cooperman's Vermont sawmill, much as they would have been in early America. The sounding surfaces, known as "heads", are made of natural vellum animal-hide and the distinctive sound of the snare drum is provided by natural gut snares stretched across the bottom of the drum.

Silver Rope Tension: Noble and Cooley Americana toy field drum is a replica not necessarily a reproduction "cord and ear" rope tension drum. Size approximately 9" diameter and 10" high. Comes with sling and drum sticks. Blue Rope Tension: Noble and Cooley Americana toy field drum is a replica not necessarily a reproduction "cord and ear" rope tension drum.

Star and Shield: Noble and Cooley toy field drum using spring clamps for tension. It is based on the original lithographs from the s. Metal shell embossed on the original machine with the same colors. This a much later period of tension than the rope tension drums. Collectible Patriotic: Noble and Cooley toy field drum using spring clamps for tension.

It is based on the original lithographs from the with Uncle Sam surrounded by Eagles and Stars and Stripes. Sweet: A collection of 78 tunes containing some Civil War selections as well as many other traditional favorites. Each arrangement features harmony, style marks and guitar chords. The music is supplemented with histories of the tunes and drumbeats. Complete Music for Fife and Drum was compiled by a professional fifer and is intended for the military fife in B-flat.

This book offers tunes from the Revolutionary and Civil War eras with suggested snare and bass drum parts as well as chord progressions. It also contains a wealth of fife history and resources. Large: has two 10" diameter solid wood grace hoops, packaged with 4 tapered 22" solid wood wands and 8 lengths of colored ribbon in a poly bag, with history and instructions. The larger hoop are easier for younger children to catch. Small: has two 7" diameter solid wood grace hoops are packaged with 4 tapered 19" solid wood wands and 8 lengths of colored ribbon in a poly bag, with history and instructions.

The smaller hoops make for a more challenging game. The game is played by scratching or marking a series of squares on the ground, sometimes single squares and sometimes two squares side by side, on which the children would jump. As a child progressed satisfactorily through the series of squares, a pebble would be tossed into the next square to mark the beginning square into which the child was to make their first jump.

The remaining rules vary widely, but the object is to make the necessary leaps and maintain your balance as your progress through the series of squares. Out of hopscotch, oddly enough, some elements of history have survived thanks to the chanted "calls" passed down from mother to daughter over long periods of time. Perhaps most notable and relevant to the antebellum and Civil War period is the chant which is known today as "The Pateroller Song" "pateroller" is a term derived from the word "patrollers", a reference to the men who patrolled the highways and byways in search of runaway slaves , a song which slaves began long before the War Between the States began, and one that continues to this day through the hopscotch and jump-rope chant.

Hopscotch Game: Our Hopscotch game comes with sidewalk chalk, 5 pucks and directions for traditional hopscotch games by Historical Folk Toys. It is reported that Roman children made their own smaller courts to imitate the soldiers. The children developed a scoring system for their games, and hopscotch was born and spread throughout Europe.

The word "hop scotch" literally came from hopping the long road to Glasgow, Scotland. Various cultures have developed their own games with different courts and rules. Other words for hopscotch are: "marelles" France , "templehupfen" Germany , "hinkelbaan" The Netherlands , "ekaria dukaria" India , "pico" Vietnam , and "rayuela" Argentina.

Most hopscotch games are played with a "puck" or "potsey. The courts can be drawn with chalk on a concrete surface or with a stick on a bare spot of level ground. Generally, hopscotch games are played by tossing the puck into a drawn section and hopping in a specific way through the court and back.

There are rules against stepping on a line, missing a square, or losing your balance and touching the court with a hand. The first person to complete the course is the winner. Today, we think of Hopscotch as a children's game, particularly for girls. This book was considered "A popular encyclopedia of the sports and pastimes of youth.

Maria Child, published in Hopscotch was considered a boy's game, as depicted by five boys playing the game in the illustration "Scotch Hoppers" from "Juvenile Games for the Four Seasons. We have cast 10 jacks in lead-free pewter and packaged them with 1 wooden ball and 1 rubber ball in a cloth pouch. It comes with a hang tag that provides a history of the game and rules for play. The pouch comes in a variety of colors. Game of Knucklebones: Knucklebones was similar to today's game of Jacks.

The bones could also be used for game of chance, by marking the flat surface with numbers from 1 to 4. We have packaged 5 synthetic knucklebones, closely resembling the original animal bones, in a poly bag along with one wooden ball, and a history and instruction sheet. Our Jacob's Ladder is constructed of 6 solid wood segments attached with colorful grosgrain ribbon. Each toy is individually packaged with instructions for some tricks to add to the mystery by Historical Folk Toys. Among the Puritans and Separatists and indeed among the Protestant sects up through the mid- to late nineteenth century, few toys were acceptable for amusement on the Sabbath, as the Sabbath was set aside for the exclusive purpose of worshipping God and reflecting upon His grace and mercies on that one day in seven.

Most Protestant denominations were Sabbatarian then. The "Sunday Blue Laws" that were in place in most states even into the end of the 's throughout the country bear witness to the prevalence of that formerly-held conviction.

Its construction was somewhat along the lines of a ladder, reminiscent then of Jacob's ladder from the Old Testament. Glass Marbles: This game of Marbles contains traditional glass target marbles 30 and shooters 2 of assorted crystal rainbow and cats-eye colors. Each marble game is packaged in a cloth pouch, with a hang tag that provides a history of marbles and instructions and rules of play. Clay Marbles: Our clay marbles are made to represent those that are so often found in historic area excavations.

These old style marbles are not perfectly round nor are they totally consistent in size and so are perfect imitations of the original handmade clay marbles. Our Game of Clay Marbles contains 10 target marbles and 2 shooters, all made of red-brown non-toxic clay. The word "marble" was not used to represent the round toy ball made from various stones until in England.

It was then that marble stone was being used for the toy and was being imported from Germany. Before this time, the English adopted the Dutch word "knikkers" for marbles.

The word "knikker" was used by New York City children well into the 19th century. The earliest marbles were made of flint, stone, and baked clay. For centuries afterward, marbles were made of stone and sometimes real marble. Glass marbles were made in Venice, Italy, and later, around , china and crockery marbles were introduced.

A glassblower invented a tool called the "marble scissors" in that allowed a larger production of glass marbles. Clay marbles began being produced in large quantities around During the s, the first machines to manufacture glass marbles were introduced.

Martin F. Christensen invented the revolutionary glass marble-making machine in , and his glass marble company produced over a million marbles each month. Horace Hill founded a company named the Akro Agate Company and moved it from Akron, Ohio, to Clarksburg, West Virginia, because natural gas and sand were more abundant in that area. By , the Akro Agate Company was the largest marble producer in the world. Berry Pink of the Marble King Company helped promote local and national marbles tournaments in America during the s and s.

Jeff Carskadden and Richard Gartley are recognized mibologists who have published the most scholarly works to date on the subject of toy marbles. Their research shows nine marble games that can be found on 17th- and 18th-century Dutch wall tiles. Marble games can be divided into two types: the games in which a player tries to knock his opponent's marbles with his own and win the marbles , and the games in which a player tries to hit a target or roll the opponent's marble through a hoop or into a hole.

There are specific ways to play marbles and to hold what is called the "shooter marble," which is a larger than the regular playing marbles. One method of shooting is called "knuckling"; and another way is called "fulking.

Marble terminology: Shooter -- taw Alleys -- marbles once made of alabaster Flints -- marble that look like flint Cloudies -- marbles that look cloudy Marbles are definitely a part of America's heritage. They have been a popular American game from Colonial times to the present. Norman Rockwell painted a wonderful picture called "Marbles Champ," which features a little girl winning the marbles of two forlorn boys.

If you are interested in marbles, you can visit the Marble Museum in Yreka, California or online at www. The object of the game is place your pins in such a way as to form a straight line of three of the same-color pins, while preventing your opponent from doing the same.

The game was played in America as early as the mid's, and continued to enjoy popularity through the time of the War Between the States. Tabletop CF Ninepins Game This set of tabletop ninepins, meant for playing indoors, has been developed from accounts and pint sources provided by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation and has been produced with their permission.

Out solid wood ninepins stand 5" tall. They are packaged with 2 solid wood 2" balls in a box printed with history and instructions for play. Tabletop HFT Ninepins Game Our set of Nine Pins with cloth bag is a tabletop version of the traditional bowling game which can be played on any tabletop surface. A quality, heavy-plain muslin bag with draw stings is included for storage of the set along with history and game rules by Historical Folk Toys.

Great fun for children and adults alike. Indoor bowling began in German monasteries. The peasants who attended church always carried their big clubs called "kegels" with them.

When they attended religious services, the monks had the peasants place their kegels at the end of a long narrow hallway. In order to be absolved of sin, the peasant would have to roll a round rock and knock down their club, which represented the Devil.

If they missed, they would have to mend their ways and repent. The monks eventually made a fun game of this activity. The word "kegling" is still used today for bowling and "keglers" for bowlers. Eventually, rolling stones at kegels lost its religious significance and the wealthy adopted this game as a favorite pastime. Martin Luther, who translated the Bible into German during the 16th-century, was one such bowling enthusiast who encouraged a uniform set of rules.

The game was officially called Kegelspiel or Nine-pins. The earliest Virginia colonists loved the game so much it interfered with their work. After Captain James Smith returned to Jamestown, bowling was declared illegal and punishable by up to three weeks in the stocks! During the early s, Nine Pins was such a favorite game that it was played in many basements and back rooms of taverns. Heavy gambling and betting were associated with the game and soon it was outlawed. People, however, still enjoyed playing this game.

So, to get around the new law, they added another pin and "ten pin bowling" was born. By , the American Bowling Congress was formed and they established official rules and regulations. Tabletop games rose in popularity when playing on the floor of pubs and taverns was no longer feasible.

Special tables were made for games such as Skittles, Carom, and Crokinole. The table game of Bagatelle from the French word meaning "a trifle" or "small thing" was also a popular game in the 19th century.

By , Bagatelle evolved into the pinball machine. Fun Fact: By the 14th century, bowling was such a favorite gambling activity that King Edward III banned the game so it would not interfere with archery practice. The game is played with sticks or splinters, usually between 15 and 20, of about the same length.

They were often dyed different colors, a custom dating from the s. The sticks were held above the ground at a distance at least equal to the length of the longest stick or splinter in the bunch. They were then released, falling to the ground and overlapping each other. A variation required that 1 stick of a different color or marking to distinguish it from the others would be placed in the bunch.

The person who had just dropped the sticks began the game, removing one stick at a time and working through the pile to remove all of the sticks without causing any of the other sticks to move. The object of the game was to accumulate more sticks from the pile than the other players removed. In the event that any stick other than the one being removed was moved at all, that player forfeited his or her turn to the next person.

At the end of the game, the player with the most sticks won. Two players with two-foot wands toss a beribboned ten-inch wooden hoop back and forth, trying to catch it in the X of their crossed wands.

The wands are drawn rapidly apart to propel the hoop back to the other player. Jump Rope. A familiar game even today—for a single child or, with a longer rope, three or more.

Make quoit rings from half-inch manila rope, fastening the ends with masking tape, and construct a box with upright dowels of various lengths, or hammer the dowels into the ground for a quoit field. Players stand at a distance and try to throw the rings over the dowels. The player throws a marker onto a numbered square, hops to retrieve it, and then throws it to the next square in the sequence. Many variations are available on the Internet. A prepared mat can be used, or a hopscotch field can be drawn in chalk.

Spinning Top. Tops come in many varieties: to be twirled with the fingers, for example, or to be wound with string, the string pulled, and the top thrown on the ground, still spinning. Other tops can be set in motion with the fingers, and then kept going by whipping the sides with a leather thong attached to a short stick. This age-old balancing act can be done with stilts to suit the child.

Wooden blocks are fastened ten to twenty inches from the ground on long poles. For young children, use pairs of No. Six small blocks are fastened together with sets of ribbon so that the blocks can appear to tumble as a child tilts the top block back and forth. This illusion can be bought ready-made.

A dozen metal jacks are dropped on the floor. A ball is bounced and the child tries to pick up as many jacks as possible before the ball hits the floor again. Clay or glass marbles are propelled by the thumb toward other marbles in a circle or pit. The player keeps the marbles she can knock out of the ring. There are many variations—ask your grandfather!

Take a four-hole button and run a string or carpet-weight thread through two opposite holes; fasten the ends together. Holding the string so that the button is in the middle, swing the button around and around, and then pull the string loops so that the button revolves first one way, then the other. After a rhythm has been established, pulling the string harder each time will make some buttons hum.

Tower Puzzle. The Tower of Hanoi is a relative newcomer. Six or more graduated disks are placed over one of three spindles fixed to a strip of wood. The object is to move all the disks to another spindle, moving one at a time, without ever placing a larger disk over a smaller one. There is much about the Tower of Hanoi on the Internet. Ball and Cup. In this centuries-old game, a small ball is affixed to a string on a short stick, at the top of which is a cup.

The player tosses the ball up and attempts catch it in the cup. A variation on this is the Bilbo Stick: The stick is pointed and the ball has a small hole. The point of a penknife is flipped up and into the ground with the front, then the back of the hand. The point is next placed on the wrist, elbow, shoulder, and head, then back down to the hand. We did not play this game. Gee-Haw Whimmy-Diddle.

Using a file, cut a series of notches in a short stick, and insert a small propeller in the end of the stick so that it moves freely. Vigorously rubbing a squared stick along the notches makes the propeller spin. Rubbing the thumb along the stick helps make the propeller reverse direction. Around , there was a fashion reaction after women grew tired of the huge sleeves, broad shoulders, big bonnets, and sometimes outlandish hairstyles of the previous decade. It was time for a change.

Silk dress, American, s. Melvin C. Steen, A chemisette half-blouse would have been worn underneath the bodice to fill in the deep V-neckline.

The lace is not original. Fan-shaped pleats fall from gathers at the shoulders and form a long inverted triangle that dips below the natural waistline and terminates in a pointed, gathered panel. Slender piping strengthens the seams in the close-fitting bodice. Hooks and eyes close the back opening. Besides, the large fill-in frill is awkward, especially if worn with a chemisette.

A very full skirt, which would have been supported by layers of petticoats, completes the look. Style in the s was partly about geometry. Angles, points, and triangular shapes can be seen across the many Gothic Revival art forms of the decade, including architecture, furniture, ceramics, clothing, and more.

The forms of these dresses, as well as the materials, approach very nearly to those that we have seen described as fashionable in the early part of the last century; the waist rendered as long and taper as possible, and terminated, for the most part, by an excessively deep point in front, and the full-flowing skirt.

Bernardino Campi Italian, — Portrait of a Woman , late s. Oil on canvas. Historical fashions strongly influenced s styles. What colors were in style? The colors which are now most fashionable and likely to continue during the season, in more or less favor, are different shades of green, violet, fawns, and shots [iridescent fabrics] —such as pink and lilac, violet and green, pink and fawn, maroon and ruby-grenat [garnet].

Grey is a favorite color in silks. Boorishness—nay, even barbarism itself—often seeks to appear in lively and flaunting colors. The silhouette of the s was narrow and elongated on top with a very full bell-shaped skirt on the bottom. This look was achieved by wearing the correct undergarments. Long, busked corsets flattened the bust and smoothed the torso through the hips so that tight bodices fit like a glove.

Click here to learn more about corset busks. In addition, bodices were often boned. A knee-length chemise shift was worn under the corset. This provided a soft layer between the skin and the corset and helped protect dresses from perspiration.