Virtual Holiday Exhibit: Notes From Toyland

For most kids in the United States today, holidays mean getting toys. Families who celebrate Christmas traditionally give their kids toys as gifts, and families who celebrate other holidays often find ways to add toy-giving into their holiday celebrations. For weeks leading up to the holidays, kids and their parents are bombarded with ads for toys competing to be the ones bought and eagerly unwrapped.

 

But how did we get here? Toys weren’t always the first thing people thought of when shopping for presents. Once upon a time, holiday presents were nuts and sweets or small trinkets. In the United States, toys couldn’t even be bought in stores at all until the Industrial Revolution in the late 1800s!

 

Notes from Toyland tells the story of how toys went from homemade playthings to the mass-manufactured, heavily advertised products we know today.

 

Join us as we explore the history behind that transition and take a walk through a century of toys in Montana. 

 

Click the image to enter the whole exhibit!

Notes from Toyland: Title

 

 

 

Exhibit Sections: 

 

Toys for the Holidays: How did we get here?

 

Learn how much toys changed (or didn’t change!) between 1900 and 1999.

A Century of Montana Toys:

Interactive Games from the Exhibit:

Teddy Bear maze (easy)

Teddy Bear Maze (hard)

HMFM Doll Eye-Spy

Toyland Jigsaw Puzzle (easy)

Toyland Jigsaw Puzzle (medium)

Toyland Jigsaw Puzzle (hard)

Book Talk: Photographic Memories

Book Talk: Photographic Memories

Wednesday, September 30, 2020 

 

 

Imagine: you’re a budding successful photographer in California with a bright future, and then on December 7th 1941 everything changes. Midori Shimoda could have never imagined the trajectory that his life would take for the next few years, especially his internment at Fort Missoula.

 

Join authors Risa Shimoda (Midori’s daughter), and Bob Fleshner for a discussion of their book: Photographic Memories: A Story of Shinjitsu live via zoom. Risa will share stories from the book about her father’s fascinating biography complete with an unaccompanied trip across the Pacific as a child, finding refuge in Utah, arrest under suspicion of espionage, and the courage to begin a new life in a new city.

 

You don’t need to have already read the book to enjoy the discussion, but if you’d like to purchase it, you can find it here.

 

For more information please email us. 

Today's Hours
12PM - 5PM

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