Chapter 1 Children, childhood and cultural heritage Mapping the field Kate Darian-Smith and Carla Pascoe When Lillian Boyd died, her son Bill journeyed to her small, humble home in an Aus- tralian country town to sort through her possessions. One room of the four-room dwelling was crammed to the ceiling with objects. Having lived through the austerity of the 1930s Depression and the Second World War, Lillian was unable to throw any- thing away (including rubber bands and plastic bags) in case it proved useful. Lillian’s hoarding proved to be a rare and valuable treasure trove. She had kept every single item that her son had owned, used or played with during his upbringing. The material culture of Bill’s childhood included school exercise books and chewed pencils; clothing such as knitted baby jackets and booties; sporting equipment includ- ing a homemade cricket bat; manufactured toys such as tiny plastic spacemen and tin animals; and his own juvenile collections of hand-blown birds’ eggs, ‘swap’ cards and matchboxes. Alongside the mass-produced playthings common to post-war Australian childhoods were several items that spoke poignantly of the straitened cir- cumstances in which the Boyd family lived. Whilst museum collections of children’s material culture have traditionally featured the toys of wealthy or elite children, the objects preserved from Bill’s childhood include a scrapbook of his favourite pictures cut from birthday cards and magazines; a crudely fashioned balsa wood imitation knife emblazoned with the misspelt words ‘Davy Croket’; and a ‘Red Indian’ dress-up costume made from hessian sacks and dyed chicken feathers. This extraordinary collection of some 700 artefacts highlights the tension between the particular and the general when preserving the heritage of children. To some extent, Bill’s juvenile artefacts are typical of baby boomer childhoods: they depict the growing availability of cheap, manufactured toys; the rising influence of American popular culture; and the polarized gender roles of the 1950s. But other aspects of the collection speak of the unique circumstances of Bill’s story, particularly the pre- dominance of quiet, indoor games which reflect the debilitating kidney problems of his early years. 1 The William Boyd Childhood Collection, now housed in Museum Victoria, is also unusual because it comprises an entire slice of one child’s life. Whilst institutional and private collections have long cherished exquisite or nostalgic artefacts associated with childhood, such indiscriminate and comprehensive collecting is highly uncommon. In other respects, however, the William Boyd Childhood Collection is an excellent Children, Childhood and Cultural Heritage, edited by Kate Darian-Smith, and Carla Pascoe, Routledge, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unimelb/detail.action?docID=1101423. Created from unimelb on 2020-02-14 05:03:21. Copyright © 2013. Routledge. All rights reserved.