Tercentennial Exhibit Celebrates Childhood In Newtown

The Newtown Historical Society, in cooperation with the C H Booth Library and several private collectors, has announced “A Tercentennial Celebration of Childhood in Newtown.” This exhibition of child-related objects will be shown at the Booth Library until May 21.

Ranging from the 18th to the 20th Centuries, this look at the life of children offers toys, banks, alphabet plates, dolls, schoolbooks, and many other genres. While not all the objects have a direct Newtown provenance, all are representative of types that would have been used in the town in its various historical periods.

Factories produced many of the later objects, but earlier objects often show unmistakable signs of being handmade on the parents’ farm. These minor works of folk art blend beautifully with the work of the children themselves as manifested in such works as an 1834 drawing school sketchbook. From cast-iron pull toys to fabric dolls, wooden horses to paper dolls, books to lead soldiers marching in formation, the objects would have pleased children from any of Newtown’s 300 years. The schoolbooks might have been a bit less pleasing, but certainly were an important part of childhood in New England.

The exhibition fills five cases on two floors of the library. Beginning on the first floor with a cabinet of toys, it continues on the second floor with a case devoted to education, a case devoted to the arts, and two more generalized cases.