Children's Toys During WWII

Toys are more than entertainment. Play and the use of toys are integral to children’s skill development such as analyzing and solving problems, getting along with others, figuring out how things work, using their imagination, and learning to develop new ideas. However, with the onset of World War II and the issuance of General Limitation Order L-81 by the War Production Board, toy manufacturers were prohibited from producing toys that contained more than 7 percent by weight of iron, steel, zinc, or rayon. Existing toys with content over that amount would cease being sold after June 30, 1942.

The Children’s Bureau of the Department of Labor published a pamphlet in 1942 titled Toys in

Wartime: Suggestions to Parents on Making Toys in Wartime. The publication explained how toys could be made for children of all ages, and recommendations included:

• Dolls made from spools
• Pull toys made from spools or “anything with a string attached”
• Easels made for drawing or painting from an old orange crate or box
• Homemade looms made from scrap wood
• Doll houses from repurposed orange crates
• “Walnut shells make boats that bob around in a pool. A toothpick fastened with wax from a candle and stuck through half piece of paper in two places makes the shell into a sailboat.”

As with many adult products, from waxed paper to calendars, the victory theme permeated children’s
toys. Battle scenes, military images, and patriotic motifs also appeared in jigsaw puzzles (popular due to being inexpensive and made from non-rationed materials), coloring books, and checkerboards. Comic books, chapter books, cartoons, films, and radio programs used war plotlines. Items such as tanks and jeeps, cannons, miniature soldiers, and military uniforms for boys and nurse outfits and nurse kits for girls were popular. Model-making, always popular, moved from cars to jeeps, military planes, and navy ships. Adolf Hitler also appeared in numerous children’s toys as an object of derision such as dartboards with his face as the bull’s-eye or push toys that punched Hitler in the face.

What toy from your childhood do you remember?

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A Lesson in Love (part of The Strength of His Heart Charity Anthology):

He thinks he’s too old. She thinks she’s too young. Can these teachers learn that love defies all

boundaries?

Born and raised in London, Isobel Turvine knows nothing about farming, but after most of the students in her school evacuate during Operation Pied Piper, she’s left with little to do. Then her friend Margery talks her into joining the Women’s Land Army, and she finds herself working the land at a manor home in Yorkshire that’s been converted to a boys’ school. A teacher at heart, she is drawn to the lads, but the handsome yet stiff-necked headmaster wants her to stick to farming.

Left with an arm that barely works from the last “war to end all wars,” Gavin Emerson agrees to take on the job of headmaster when his school moves from London to Yorkshire, but he’s saddled with the quirky manor owner, bickering among his teachers, and a gaggle of Land Army girls who have turned the grounds into a farm. When the group’s blue-eyed, raven-haired leader nearly runs him down in a car, he admonishes her to stay in the fields, but they are thrown together at every turn. Can he trust her not to break his heart?

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Linda Shenton Matchett writes happily-ever-after historical Christian fiction about second chances and women who overcome life’s challenges to be better versions of themselves.

Whether you choose her books set in the Old West or across the globe during WWII, you will be immersed in the past through rich detail. Follow the journeys of relatable characters whose faith is sorely tested, yet in the end, emerge triumphant. Be encouraged in your own faith-walk through stories of history and hope.

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