Abstract:
With purchasing power expanding to include more and more sectors of the population and childhood being recognised for its importance in terms of education and socialisation, a completely new area of consumer item production developed in the 19th century: the toy industry. New consumption-oriented branches of the industry further developed in the last third of the 19th century and the German toy industry was, until at least 1914, the biggest in the world. The products themselves were to a remarkable extent oriented towards political and social life.
Production, distribution and consumption are analysed with particular focus on their interconnection and their infiltration into the societal discourse.
The development of advertisement can be traced using the toy industry as a benchmark.