Figure 1.-- This cabinet card portrait shows an unidentified chils wearing a tam, hairbow, basic A-line dress, lace trim, and petticots along with ringlet curls. We would guess that the portrait was taken in the 1890s nd the child is about 3-years old. The child looks like a girl, but in the 1890s, the child may well be a boy. One reason we think this is the whip and horse pull toy which are more associated with boys. There of course is no way to be sure. The studio is Ritz & Hastings in Boston.

Given their prevalence in old photographs, pull toys seem to be some of the mosy popular toys in the 19th century. We see them in countless old photographs. Pull toys were the earliest and the simplest type of the category of moving toys. In this cased powered entirely by the child. They were toys on wheels, usually animals. we see wooden animals, but there were also more relistic stuffed animals. They got their name because they were pulled by a length of cord or rope. Because that is all the child had to besides engaging their imagination, they were sutable for any child as soon as they learned to walk. They could also be played with by pushing or pulling on the floor. Not all were animals, but most were in the 19th century. We see a range of amimal pull toys. In he 19th century they were known animals. People were just learning about dinosaurs (a modern boyhood favorite) at the end of the century. As best we can tell the most popular animal was the horse, at least that is the amimal that we mostly see in studio portraits. Readers have mentioned to us that horse pull toys were often an indicatir that the child was a boy. We can not yet verify that with idetified portraits, but we are looking for them.

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Created: 8:05 AM 12/3/2016
Last updated: 8:05 AM 12/3/2016