Playhouses and the architecture of childhood.

Between the 1850s and 1930s, before playhouses for children reached the mainstream, they were often fully functional cottages designed by well-known architects for British royalty, American industrialists, and Hollywood stars. Recognizing the playhouse in this era as a stage for the purposeful performance of upper-class identity, Abigail A. Van Slyck illuminates their role as carefully planned architectural manifestations of adult concerns, from Queen Victoria and Prince Albert’s Swiss Cottage (1853) to the children’s cottage on the grounds of Cornelius Vanderbilt’s Newport mansion (1886) to the glass-block playhouse given to Shirley Temple in 1936, and many more in between. Here, Van Slyck is joined in conversation with Annmarie Adams, Marta Gutman, and Kate Solomonson.

Abigail A. Van Slyck is the Dayton Professor Emeritus of Art History at Connecticut College and author of Playhouses and Privilege: The Architecture of Elite Childhood; A Manufactured Wilderness: Summer Camps and the Shaping of American Youth, 1890-1960; and Free to All: Carnegie Libraries and American Culture, 1890-1920.

Annmarie Adams is an architectural historian at McGill University in Montreal. Adams is author of Medicine by Design: The Architect and the Modern Hospital, 1893-1943; Architecture in the Family Way: Doctors, Houses, and Women, 1870-1900; and coauthor of Designing Women: Gender and the Architectural Profession.

Marta Gutman is dean and professor in the Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture at the City College of New York. Gutman is author of A City for Children: Women, Architecture, and the Charitable Landscapes of Oakland, 1850-1950.

Kate Solomonson is architectural historian and professor emeritus in the Department of Architecture at the University of Minnesota. Solomonson is coeditor, with Van Slyck, of the Architecture, Landscape, and American Culture series with University of Minnesota Press.

EPISODE REFERENCES:

-Hanover estate: Osborne (Swiss Cottage), Isle of Wight, UK. For Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.

-Vanderbilt estate: The Breakers, Newport, Rhode Island. For Cornelius Vanderbilt II and Alice Claypoole Gwynne Vanderbilt.

-Dow estate: Foxhollow Farm (Fallsburgh), Rhinebeck, New York. For Tracy Dows and Alice Olin Dows.

-Whitney estate: Greentree, Manhasset, Long Island. For Payne Whitney and Helen Hay Whitney.

-Dodge estate: Meadow Brook Hall (since 1929, Knole Cottage; before 1929, Hilltop Lodge), Rochester, Michigan. For Alfred Wilson and Matilda Dodge Wilson.

-Ford estate: Gaukler Pointe, Grosse Pointe, Michigan. For Edsel Ford and Eleanor Clay Ford.

Designing the Creative Child / Amy F. Ogata

Pastoral Capitalism / Louise Mozingo

The research of Barbara Penner (Bartlett School of Architecture, London)

Praise for the book:

"Beautifully written, impeccably researched, and profu

Episode Transcript

Abigail A. Van Slyck (00:00):
It's

Annmarie Adams (00:06):
a continuing conundrum of how we design for
vulnerable populations.

Marta Gutman (00:12):
We don't have enough place for kids to play.
Regardless of who's running theplaygrounds, the dearth of open
space for children to play ofany age is remarkable and really
tragic.

Abigail A. Van Slyck (00:23):
Every building built for children is
built by adults. These buildingsreally do, reflect adult
concerns.

Kate Solomonson (00:32):
How have adults, elite adults, been,
using their children as a way ofadvancing their position?

Abigail A. Van Slyck (00:41):
My name is Abigail Van Slyke, Abby to my
friends, and I'm the DaytonProfessor Emerita of Art History
and Architectural Studies atConnecticut College. I'm an
architectural historian and theauthor of Playhouses and
Privilege, the Architecture ofElite Childhood, published by
the University of MinnesotaPress. I'm joined today by three
scholars whose work has inspiredme in so many ways and who have

(01:05):
been some of the most generouscolleagues anyone could ever
have. Ambry Adams, Marta Gutman,and Kate Solomonson. And while
the publication of Playhousesand Privilege is the impetus for
this podcast, I imagine that ourconversation will take us
further afield as we reflect ona range of scholarly interests
that that we all have in common.
So maybe it makes sense for eachone of you to introduce

(01:26):
yourself, and then we'll take itfrom there. Do you wanna start,
Anne Marie?

Annmarie Adams (01:29):
Yes. Thanks. And thank you, Abby, for inviting me
to be part of this. I'm AnneMarie Adams, a professor and
architectural historian at,McGill University in Montreal,
where I teach both medical andarchitectural students to assess
the built environment. And I'mcurrently working on a book, I
call it a spatial biography, ofa pretty famous woman doctor
through 10 spaces she occupiedin her life.

Abigail A. Van Slyck (01:52):
Marta, I guess we're going in
alphabetical order.

Marta Gutman (01:55):
Hi, Abby. And like Anne Marie, I extend my thanks
for inviting me to be part ofthis conversation. I am the
dean, a dean, the dean, and aprofessor at the Spitzer School
of Architecture at the CityCollege of New York, which is
part of the City University ofNew York, a mouthful. When I'm
not being a dean, or when datingpermits, which isn't all that

(02:16):
often, I'm working on a bookabout architecture, public
schools, children, and racialsegregation in New York City.

Abigail A. Van Slyck (02:24):
And Kate.

Kate Solomonson (02:25):
Hi, Abby. Thank you for inviting me to be here
for this. I'm Kate Solomonson.I'm an Emeritus professor in the
School of Architecture at theUniversity of Minnesota and an
architectural historian. Andcurrently, now that I have more
time, I'm working on a study ofthe interplay between indigenous
and settler spatialities in theregion settlers call Dakota
Territory during the lastquarter of the nineteenth

(02:47):
century.
And related to this is a casestudy that explores how the
processes of settler colonialismwere intertwined with the
formation of the modernarchitectural profession in the
Trans Mississippi West. Nowalthough Abby's topics and my
topics might seem to be quitedifferent, our interests,
methods, and values concerningarchitectural history overlap.

(03:08):
And it's my greatest pleasure towork with Abby on co editing a
book series called Architecture,Landscape, and American Culture,
published by the University ofMinnesota Press.

Abigail A. Van Slyck (03:19):
Thank you, Kate. That was quite a start.
And thank you for mentioning ourbook series because that has
been one of the places wherewe've been in conversation most
often about what we love aboutour work and what we find
challenging about it. And it'sgreat to think of this as a
continuation of some of thosediscussions. Thank you all for
being here.
I really consider this the dreamteam for a conversation about

(03:40):
architectural history. But Ithought to kick things off, I'd
say a little bit aboutplayhouses and privilege, and
then we can open up theconversation from there. So I
think of the book as a criticalexploration of the role of
architecture in the reproductionof social privilege, with a
particular attention tochildren's cottages and
playhouses. Overall, it chartsthe rise and fall of these small

(04:05):
buildings as tools of eliteculture. It starts in the 1850s
with the Swiss Cottage atOsborne, built for the children
of Queen Victoria and PrinceAlbert, and it ends in the
nineteen thirties with twoplayhouses gifted, one to
princess Elizabeth, who went onto become queen Elizabeth the
second, and another to ShirleyTemple.

(04:25):
In between, the book considerscottages and playhouses built
for rich and powerful Americans,including the Vanderbilts, the
Whitneys, Henry Clay Frick, theheiress and daughter of George
Pullman, the widow of JohnDodge, the wife of Henry Ford.
The argument is that thesebuildings served their families
in several ways, Partly justkeeping youngsters away from the

(04:49):
great houses where their parentsmaintained and enhanced their
social standing by entertainingother elite adults, in part by
giving those parents a modicumof control over their children's
social connections, And I think,crucially, helping those
children internalize their ownprivileged status so that it
felt natural to them. Thenineteen twenties were a pivotal

(05:10):
point in this history, in partbecause playhouses became highly
gendered objects at that momentin response to the Red Scare of
nineteen eighteen, nineteennineteen. And also because
playhouses were beginning to bebuilt by stars of the stage and
screen. And here I'm thinking ofHarold Lloyd who hung from that
clock in a silent film that youmight have a mental image of.

(05:32):
And in this context, children'splayhouses began to appear in
fan magazines where they becameobjects of desire for middle
class Americans and ultimately,in that process, really lost
much of their effectivenesswithin elite culture.

Marta Gutman (05:48):
Abby, thank you. So I will ask you this question
by way of opening up, I hope, arich and lively conversation. So
your book puts to rest thenotion that buildings made for
children are solely aboutchildren. Would you explain how
these structures advance adultvalues as delightful and playful
as the buildings may appear tobe?

Abigail A. Van Slyck (06:11):
Yeah, that's a great question because
I think that may be what gets inthe way of people studying the
architecture of childhood. Youknow, I think when we think
about that, every building builtfor children is built by adults.
It's paid for by adults.Decisions are made by adults
about everything, reallyeverything about those
buildings. And so it shouldn'tbe too much of a surprise to us

(06:32):
that these buildings really do,reflect adult concerns.
In part, I think adults areconcerned to prepare their
children to be effective adultsas they grow. But I think
there's lots of other thingsgoing on, at the same time. And
one of the buildings that leapsimmediately to mind when you ask
that question is the SwissCottage built by Queen Victoria

(06:54):
and Prince Albert for theirkids. It was talked about at the
time as a site where childrencould throw off the restraints
of royalty. And that was amessage that actually played
really well to the queen'smiddle class subjects who
thought that children should beable to enjoy an innocent and
carefree existence.
And so they really embrace thisidea that this was a place where

(07:15):
the children could go and bethemselves. And in some ways,
the evidence is that the kidsreally did enjoy it. They looked
forward to it, and they spent alot of time there, and they had
fun. But there were also momentswhen their parents used that
site to prepare them for theroyalty that they supposedly
were avoiding. On simple levels,like when they first laid the

(07:37):
first stone to build the Swisscottage, the Prince of Wales was
11 and he read sort of aproclamation on a piece of
parchment that had everyone'snames on it.
And so he had to stand up thereas an 11 year old and proclaim
all of this stuff. And then theyrolled it up and put it in a
bottle and put it in thefoundation. Later on, when his
brother was actually 18, so notnot a young, young boy, but when

(08:00):
he was 18, the geologist CharlesLyle came to visit. And the
young prince was assigned toshow him around the museum,
which was associated with theSwiss Cottage. And so he he got
to practice talking to hissubjects, right, as a young
person talking to adults andholding conversation.
I think there are more subtlethings happening. I think the

(08:23):
Swiss Cottage had particularresonance for Vicky, the
princess royal. I think theirparents had her in mind. At the
great exhibition in 1851, theywere already thinking about a
marriage partner for her, eventhough she was only 10 at the
time. They bought a Swiss deskat the exhibition, highly
ornamented, with images of Swisspeasants enjoying cozy

(08:46):
domesticity.
And then two years later, theystart building the Swiss cottage
where the Swiss desk lived and,you know, sort of created an
environment in which theirdaughter and her siblings could
play out their own version ofthis kind of cozy domesticity.
So it serves to frame her forher future husband and her in
laws as a young woman with anappreciation for domestic

(09:09):
pursuits. And it also puts herin a longer line of elite women
who had themselves depicteddoing things like feeding
chickens, right, as a way ofsignaling that they understood
that when they married, a bigpart of their responsibility was
the care of their husband'sestates. Actually, it's part of

(09:29):
your nobility, right, toindicate that you understand
that you have an obligation tothe land.

Marta Gutman (09:34):
So it's clear these kids the children, the
children, we could call themkids, they had lots of work to
do in a playhouse. Right?

Abigail A. Van Slyck: Absolutely. I also think it's (09:42):
undefined
really interesting at the SwissCottage, there was this there
was always a museum component.So the museum initially was a
room on the Second Floor. Andthe idea was that the kids would
go out and collect naturalobjects from from nature and put
them on display in the museum.And then eventually, people
start sending them things.
So their connections who are,you know, throughout the world

(10:06):
are sending them objects.Sometimes they're things that
were given to their mother when,you know, people came to visit
from far flung parts of theempire. And so they actually
build a separate museum buildingeventually. I think that
building plays a reallyimportant role in giving these
royal children an imperialmindset in part because the

(10:26):
stuff that gets displayed in themuseum is either their natural
history or they're objects fromnon European. They're cultural
artifacts from non Europeansocieties.
The European stuff ischaracterized as art, and it's
at the main house. The buildingnot only helps create that kind
of hierarchy of cultures, but italso teaches the children

(10:48):
because the children act as thecurators of this museum. It also
teaches these young royals thatthey are the ones creating
meaning by the way that theydecide to arrange the stuff from
all over the world.

Annmarie Adams (11:02):
Abby, I have a question. I just love the book.
One question I have is how awarethe adults were of the power of
these spaces? Were they awarethat they were powerful tools of
elite culture, like you say,that might transform their
children, or was it just, like,the right thing to do?

Abigail A. Van Slyck (11:21):
That's a super interesting question. I
believe that they did understandhow important it was. And one of
the challenges of this work isthat I don't have long letters
from parents saying, oh, andtoday, we started by
commissioning a children'scottage because we know how

(11:42):
important it will be forpreparing our children to be,
you know, effective elites inthe future. I don't have any of
that. But I look at instanceslike the children's cottage at
the Breakers.
So Cornelius Vanderbilt thesecond, one of the richest men
in America at the time, buys theBreakers from Pierre Lorillard,
a a big a a big house inNewport. And he immediately

(12:05):
hires Peabody and Stearns, atthat point, arguably, the the
most prominent architects in TheUS, to vastly expand the dining
room so that they can reallyentertain on a on a large scale
and to make other changes. Butbefore they start any of that,
they build the children'scottage, and that's the very

(12:26):
first thing they do. And theyspend more on it than a middle
class house. Again, they'reusing Peabody and Stearns to
actually do the design.
So everything about theiractions suggests to me that this
is their top priority and thatthey know how important, this
building is gonna be in inhelping them sort of manage

(12:49):
their children. At the sametime, there is that sense of it
sort of becomes the thing to dofor people at that level. You
know, the next generation ofVanderbilts, young people who
are forming their families inthe very early years of the
twentieth century. They go on toto build playhouses. I think it

(13:10):
changes a little bit in tone atthat point because play is
taking on this whole newimportance in American culture
for sure.
There are play theorists, youknow, they're actually arguing
that the human entity needs playin order to grow up into a
healthy adult and that bydepriving children of play

(13:31):
you're depriving them ofsomething really, really
important developmentally. Andso then the playhouse becomes a
way for these parents toactually make very visible their
commitment to play. It reflectsback on them and that it's also
a way of saying, I am a goodparent.

Annmarie Adams (13:47):
And I think about houses like the post war
suburban house, you know, in1960 with the open plan where it
was so important for the motherto watch the children play. It
becomes something to be a goodparent, you have to be the
visible guardian. It's sodifferent to have a playhouse.

Abigail A. Van Slyck (14:05):
Exactly. And so I think that's the other
thing that's very interesting tome. And it seems a little
contradictory. And so I work Istruggle at sometimes to
articulate what I think is goingon. But the way I would put it
is these elite families are apart of their historical moment.
They know what middle classculture thinks about the

(14:27):
importance of children. Theyknow that middle class families
cherish their children, put themat the middle of their domestic
space, put them at the middle oftheir schedules, how they
organize their lives in terms oftheir weekly routines, in terms
of their annual celebrations,but children are central to
that. They know that, and theywanna be seen to be a part of

(14:49):
that. And so the playhouse isn'tlike that visible symbol that
they get it, but they themselvesdo not have existences that
allow putting children at thevery center of their lives. I
think about Payne Whitney andHelen Hayes Whitney.
I love them. In their familypapers, there's a baby book.

(15:10):
Right? One of those ones thatyou buy, and you put the first
tooth and the first word and thefirst step and the first
birthday and the firstChristmas, whatever. And they
fill it out partly, but theysave it.
I mean, what's interesting isthat that baby book is still
preserved, you know, hundredand, you know, twenty five years
later, still in the familypapers. But it's also clear that

(15:32):
they so they knew that mode ofparenting. They admire it enough
to have a baby book and makeentries in it, but it's clear
from other documents thatthey're not living that life.
Their son, Jacques, was born ata time of year when the parents
were normally in Europe, and sothey go to Europe without the

(15:54):
kids. They leave the kids athome for weeks at a time.
Jacques has a birthday party.It's a lavish birthday party.
Every kid gets a camera, but theparents aren't there. I think it
becomes, the building becomeseven more important because it
stands in for intentions thatthe parents can't actually live
out.

Annmarie Adams (16:13):
Oh, so it's just such an important marker of
social class, like, such adifference, like a sign.

Kate Solomonson (16:20):
Yeah. Along those lines, I was really struck
by your discussion of newly richindustrial magnets and,
constructing playhouses even asthey were celebrating the path
that they had had taken from theworkshop and so on on up. And, I
mean, as as late as the latenineteenth century, no matter

(16:40):
how much money they had, anotherelite was, looked down on them
for having come out of theworkshop

Abigail A. Van Slyck (16:45):
tradition in manual labor. So, you know,

Kate Solomonson (16:45):
we fast forward tradition and manual labor. So,
you know, we fast forward aheadto Ford and Dodge playhouses,
and it was so striking to methat these playhouses were being
built for children of families,where there were people who
never had childhoods of play,but had childhoods of perhaps

(17:06):
education and then work at ayoung age. I I find it
fascinating about how those twothings came together. I was
wondering if you wanted to sayany more about that.

Abigail A. Van Slyck (17:18):
Yeah. That's thank you for that
question. Yeah. It's in part,it's fascinating to me because
those playhouses by Ford andDodge are so over the top.
Right?
They are actually unlike otherearlier nineteenth century
cottages and playhouses thatwere places to hang out. These
were miniature middle classhouses. Right? You walk through

(17:39):
a front door into a front hall.There was a front hall closet.
There was a little console tablewith a mirror hanging over it,
and you continued into a livingroom and then a dining room and
then a kitchen. And there werein the Dodge Playhouse 2
bedrooms so that one could notonly belong to Frances Dodge,
the the mistress of the house,and the other could belong to

(18:01):
her dollies who were in thenursery. Right? And a bathroom.
Right?
So they are and they so they arefully plumbed, and it costs a
lot of money to make theselittle miniature houses and to
have them function socompletely. So by the time
they're doing this, the incometax had been instituted. They
were not motivated by trying toforestall, income tax. And so

(18:26):
it's like, well, if we have topay tax, we might as well enjoy
our wealth, at the same time.And so they do these kinds of
over the top kinds ofplayhouses.
I think and then there's a verynarrow play script for girls,
that these over the topplayhouses of the nineteen
twenties are very feminized.They're typically a gift from an

(18:47):
adult woman to a particularlittle girl. It's typically
given to her on her birthday.She is understood to be the
owner of the house forever, nomatter how old she gets. And
that her only, you know, theonly play script there is to be
the mother to the dollies and bethe housekeeper to the house and
forget hanging around and justreading and listening to music

(19:09):
or whatever you might do in yourplayhouse.
Right? There is a sense that theFords and Dodges who had come
out of working families alsowanted to signal that they
weren't that far away from it,that they hadn't lost their
common touch. They hadn't losttheir common touch to such an
extent that their girls wouldn'tknow how to keep house. Even

(19:29):
though I don't think their girlsever once kept house, the
playing house became a a way ofadults saying they still care
about it even if they don't doit.

Kate Solomonson (19:38):
I have another question. One of the things I've
always admired, Abby, from thevery beginning of your career is
your methodology, the kinds ofquestions you pose, the kinds of
sources you use, how you goabout doing your work. And this
is work that is really complex.And you're dealing with
representations. You're dealingwith performance.

(19:59):
You're dealing with space at allscales and, quite an array of
sources. And so I was hopingthat you would say a little bit
more about the challenges thatyou faced because at one point
you mentioned that doing thiswork on playhouses, produced
methodological challenges thatwere really hard.

Abigail A. Van Slyck (20:19):
Yeah. One of the things well, I think it's
difficult anytime any of us takeon any project is that the
sources that you particularlywould love to see are just don't
exist. In this case, there's notrobust correspondence between
fathers and mothers talkingabout why they're gonna build a
playhouse or a children'scottage for their kids. There's

(20:39):
just not that kind of papertrail, and so you have to build
to that in other ways. For this,I was actually really surprised
at how few architects drawings Ihad for these buildings, even
though many of them werearchitect design.
And so, I mean, I got aroundthat. I'm on record as
suggesting that I think a planis the most important thing we

(21:01):
can possibly analyze. So Icommissioned plans all drawn
consistently to three differentscales depending on the size of
the building. I'm really, reallyproud of that. And then I'm
really, really grateful that thebook designers at the press
honored what we'd accomplishedwith those plans and made sure
that the scale was keptconsistent, in production of the

(21:23):
book itself.
So that's great. But it meansthat we don't have things like
in a lot of cases, I don't knowwhat the family called the rooms
inside these buildings. And oneof the things, Kate, you taught
me years ago was how importantit is to pay really close
attention to what the people whocommissioned and designed the

(21:43):
buildings said they were doing.Whether it was the style, it's
not up to architecturalhistorians to say, no, no, no,
no, no. We call that this style.
You need to listen to what thepeople thought they were doing
so that you can understand alittle bit more about their
motivations. I would have lovedto have known what they actually
called some of the rooms inthese playhouses, and I don't in

(22:06):
some cases. And then if therewas, you know, there was not a
lot of visual evidence ofchildren at play. And one of the
things that I was reallydelighted by is that Tracy
Dowse, who was the man who ownedFox Hollow Farm in Rhinebeck,
New York and built a playhousefor his children, was also an

(22:27):
amateur photographer. And so wehave, like, unbelievable photos
of 11 year old Olin Dowsstanding at the stove in his
playhouse dressed in Escoffierwhites.
It's like, oh my god. You know?So, you know, on that side,
there was actually some stuff,some of these jewels that came
forward. But then what do you dowhen, you know, you don't have

(22:50):
the adults involved telling youwhat they think they're doing?
And that's when I think you haveto begin to triangulate from
other kinds of sources.
And I think the analogy that Ifind most useful for my work is
that of the theater. That if youcan think of the architecture as
the stage set, and you can thinkof the furnishings as the props,

(23:15):
And then you look to otherthings like paintings, like
literature, like other art formsto give you a sense of what the
script was, like, what thesocial interaction was that was
intended to take place there,what were the sorts of things on
the minds of the people whoinhabited those spaces. Then I
think you can begin toproductively, right, think about

(23:38):
and to think about life as aperformance, to think about
using a space as a performance,and then to actually think about
if we're gonna use thatterminology, who's the audience?
Who can actually see thatperformance at a given time? If
they aren't there to see itthemselves, are there ways in
which that performance is beingamplified through other media?

(23:59):
And pay really serious attentionto when we are finding out, how
we're finding out what we knowabout a building, in what
context it was originallypresented. But everybody, all
all of you must have thoughts onthe methodological challenges
and how we get over them.

Marta Gutman (24:17):
To jump in here a bit, one thought I had is it's
the way in which the designs ofthese buildings are reflective
or engaged with the ways inwhich architecture for children
is changing for all children ischanging overall in this period.
So I'm thinking of a couple ofexamples in the book. One, when
you talk about Prince Albert'sprogram for education and his

(24:40):
implementation, not only in thechildren's cottage, but in the
other places at Osborne and alsoin other palaces of eighth
grading in the kids' educationand their children's education,
his attention to that, and howit played out architecturally.
And that seems to me thatthere's we can think of them as
exceptional, these buildings,but we can also think of them as

(25:02):
typical. And it seems to me thatthat's one way in which the
typicality of these buildings ispretty it's pretty interesting
to me.
So that's one example. Anotherthought I had is the role of the
model kitchen, and the model andthe role of the model kitchen in
domestic science and ineducating children, girls of all

(25:22):
classes to be better workers inkitchens. And so the kinds of
model kitchens that you depictso beautifully in these cottages
and a couple of different ones,and, I was fortunate to see the
one at the Breakers just lastfall, are reminiscent to me of
the kinds of model kitchens yousee in settlement houses or in
settlement house instructionprograms or involved in those

(25:44):
pro programs and cooking classesin some of those industrial
schools for girl for kids. Sothere's a kind of really
interesting cross class, Ithink, potential for comparison
here that your work raises inthe ways in which these
buildings show that children howchildren come center stage in
the ways in which the physicalthe built environment is

(26:05):
changing for children overall inthe period you study. And then
we could also talk aboutplayrooms, and particularly
gender differentiation in play.

Abigail A. Van Slyck (26:15):
So the kitchen stuff, Marta, that's so
interesting. I mean, I agreethat physically, they look a lot
like the kinds of model kitchensyou just, you know, enumerated.
But throughout my work, I'vebeen struck by the fact that
these are not training theseyoung heiresses for this
domestic work in the same way.That, you know, the my argument
would be that the kitchen in theplayhouse at the Breakers has no

(26:39):
relationship to what the kitchenin the Breakers looks like,
which is an industrial kitchenof the sort that you would have
found in a hotel of the time.Right?
And that Alice of the Breakersnever goes down to the kitchen
to give instruction to herstaff, that they meet with her
in her boudoir, and that's hercommand center, and that's where

(27:00):
she gives instructions. And it'sup to somebody else to figure
out how to work the stove. Itseems like a bit of a conundrum
to me, or it has in the past atmoments, that these heiresses
were given these kitchenenvironments. Heiresses and
heirs, because boys did cook aswell, particularly in the
nineteenth century. I mean, Ithink in some ways, they were

(27:21):
supposed to think it was fun,and they did think it was fun.
And they were encouraged that ifby treating domestic labor as
play, that that was one of thebig distinctions between them
and the adults who were employedby their families. That as an
heiress, I would outgrowcooking. I would do it as fun

(27:42):
when I was a girl, and then whenI was a woman, somebody else
would do it for me. And in incontrast to the young woman who
is a servant who actually helpsGertrude Vanderbilt and her
friend make lunch.

Marta Gutman (27:57):
Yeah. I don't disagree with you on any of
that. I guess what I'm trying toarticulate is that the kitchen
becomes important to feature inplaces that are dedicated to
kids, and that appears insettings regardless of class,
although the uses of thosespaces are quite different. But
the appeal of the kitchen gardenin a settlement house was that

(28:17):
it was cast as something aplayful activity that would
teach a girl how to be aservant, right, five or six
years old, right, or as young asthat. Whereas in the Breakers or
the Breakers Cottage or one ofthe others, the kitchen is also
a side of play, but it's a sideof play that reinforces the
class position of the girl who'sin it.

(28:39):
Right? My point is is that thekitchen is present.

Abigail A. Van Slyck (28:42):
Thank you for clarifying that. Really
interesting to think about thisin terms of storybooks and
children's literature and Itried to do a little bit of that
as, some of the 1920s playhousesare more overtly fairy tale like
in their architecture. And so Itried to figure out what's going
on there. There might be greatliterature on that somewhere,

(29:04):
but I couldn't find it. So,either I'm gonna have to write
it or or I'm gonna have to findit.
But it does seem to me that whatyou know, I'm thinking of, I
don't know, Beatrix Potter,mice, Hulk Cook. You know,
every, you know, every activitythat takes place in a storybook
has a kitchen in it, and that'sthe site of often great domestic

(29:28):
comfort. It's also the placewhere the safety of domesticity
can go horribly wrong if you getcooked or something like that in
one of those darker fairy tales.Super interesting thing to think
about, Mara. Thank you.

Marta Gutman (29:40):
Super. Yeah. And then I think also in a period in
which age grading, not only ineducation, but in every aspect
of children's lives, it becomesthis preoccupation that you're
going to get this kind of toywhen you're five and this kind
of toy when you're six and onand on and on and I mean from
the material culture side to thebuilding side to even the city
side the people you describe usethese buildings again and again

(30:02):
and again. They're not aimed ata particular time in childhood.
They're aimed at a kind ofperiod, right?
And so Gertrude VanderbiltWhitney is hanging out in the
children's cottage when she's 19years old, if I remember this
properly, or Princess Victoriais coming back to the cottage
after she's married. So thebuildings to the children,

(30:23):
right? I mean, if we're tryingto understand what the buildings
mean to the children as kids,their actions as older
teenagers, young adults wouldreveal that they're quite
important, right? That they holda place of their imaginary
understanding of childhood.Right?

Abigail A. Van Slyck (30:40):
You know, especially the children's
cottages, but even some of theplayhouses were intended to be
used cross generationally.Right? It was also understood
that one of the activities thatwould take place at a playhouse
would be that kids would beentertaining their parents, that
they would make little tea cakesor whatever and serve them to
their parents. And that takesplace at the Swiss Cottage with

(31:03):
Victoria and Albert. It takesplace, you know, in with Olin
Dows cooking in his Escoffierwhites.
And what's really interesting isthat when these shrinky dink
middle class houses get bestowedupon a particular girl, she
doesn't pass it on to heryounger siblings. She keeps it,
and it is hers forever. And sothat completely undoes the kind

(31:25):
of age grading that you'retalking about as well.

Marta Gutman (31:28):
But but it also speaks about their value. Right?
Their emotional value, I think.

Abigail A. Van Slyck (31:33):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Kate Solomonson (31:35):
Abby, a question that came up in the
planning of this podcast about,how what you've been researching
the playhouses might connectwith issues in the present. I'll
toss out a very obvious one thatI'm curious about what you think
about, and that is after writingabout British royal family
spaces for children, what do youthink about how this has been

(31:55):
represented in recentproductions like The Crown and
Victoria?

Abigail A. Van Slyck (32:00):
I love talking about this. As you can
imagine, I watched both of thoseshows very carefully, and I was
very hungry to see my buildingsrepresented there and how they
would be presented. I was sorelydisappointed. I I think in large
part because they weren't filmedon-site. The Osborne scenes were

(32:20):
not filmed at Osborne and Idon't know for sure where they
filmed all parts of The Crown,but I'm fairly sure they were
not at Royal Lodge At Windsor,which is where Princess
Elizabeth's Iggwilth and Bachis.
So I get it that you'd have toreproduce it in order to film it
somewhere else and that it mightnot seem worthwhile. I did
wonder whether I mean, it seemslike particularly on The Crown,

(32:42):
but also a bit of Victoria aswell, that some of the drama
comes from this sense that thatroyal children are not loved in
the right ways. They're to bepitied in some ways, but they
have not been, nurtured and andloved in just the right way. And
so I think that the playhousescould be hard to fit into that

(33:03):
narrative unless you're gonnalet me come in and, you know,
give a mini lecture. Like, okay.
We're gonna pause and have anarchitectural historian come in
and talk to you aboutplayhouses. Because, you know,
on the surface of them, you justlook at them and you think, oh,
well, here's this materialevidence that the parents did
lavish attention and materialgoods, and they gave their

(33:24):
children the stuff of a good andhappy childhood, to coin a
phrase from Lorta Gutman, thatthis is the way that you show
that you know what the goodchildhood should be. It's harder
to fit them in there. What Ithink is really ironic is that,
especially at Osborne, if theyhad looked at the way that
childhood was spatialized beyondthe Swiss Cottage, it could have

(33:47):
really investigated that fraughtrelationship between parents and
children. Because at Osborne,yes, there is a nursery that's
right above where Victoria andAlbert's quarters are, and the
younger children were up there.
And it allowed that part ofOsborne, which is called the
Pavilion, to be like a beautifullittle container of happy

(34:10):
domestic, you know, nuclearfamily life. But the truth was
that as soon as the childrenleft the nursery, that is when
they're about seven, they getput into the building next door.
Buildings are connected. Right?It's a wing, but it's it's a
very different kind of building.
And they're given their own verydifferent kinds of places to
live. The the princesses on onelevel, the prince of Wales and

(34:34):
his brother on the floor above,and they are completely isolated
from the family. It is, youknow, the prince of Wales'
bedroom, his sitting room, hisbrother's room and sitting room,
hit, the prince of Wales'Tutor's room, and then their
personal attendants. There'sonly one stairwell. There's no

(34:57):
connection to the rest of thefamily, and I think that prince
of Wales, right, did not reactwell to that.
I think he felt ignored by hisfamily. He felt somewhat
overworked and somewhat put uponby his tutor. He acted out. His
father would overreact, and theywould start the cycle, you know,
all over again. So the space isactually a really great way to

(35:19):
look at how that dynamic playedout exactly as it did.

Marta Gutman (35:24):
And just to say, that dynamic, that's
fascinating, and I I think youwrite about that beautifully in
the book. I think it'swonderfully explained. But to
compare it with the condition ofworking class families, children
didn't have separate beds,children there may be in a
tenement there might be tworooms, the mixing of
generations, the mixing ofdifferent kinds of activities

(35:47):
and family life, parents worked.It was a completely different
world socially, economically,and architecturally. So there's
such a stark contrast there andeven too with in the 1850s, I
mean Anne Marie is much more theexpert on this than I am with
regard to British architecture,but even in a middle class house
you wouldn't have such starkseparation between generations

(36:11):
as you find in the royal family.
So again, the idea that thesekids have lots of work to do is
really pretty evident in,through the architectural
arrangements. It's prettystriking.

Annmarie Adams (36:23):
I can't help but jumping in and and saying that I
think part of that separation,comes from ideas about health
and keeping bodies separatelyand surrounding each body with
fresh air as such a privilege ofclass. So I just gave a lecture
this morning on New Yorktenements. Very fresh in my mind
showing all those Jacob Riisphotos. But, yeah, what a

(36:46):
difference in terms ofseparation.

Abigail A. Van Slyck (36:49):
So what's interesting to me, prince Albert
was really interested in thatmovement. Right? And he
commissions these, working men'shouses that are erected at the
Great Exhibition of of eighteenfifty fifty one and wins all
kinds of awards for them. Andthose were actually really
useful to me when I looked atthe plans of the Swiss Cottage.

(37:09):
We don't have original plans ofthe Swiss Cottage.
We have plans that were madethree years after the building
was built. And they've beeninterpreted as though they sort
of show the original state ofthe of the caretaker's quarters.
And by using Albert's verystrong opinions about what goes
into decent housing, I have cometo the conclusion that that

(37:33):
caretaker's cottage only had onebedroom originally. There's only
one room that had bothsufficient privacy, but also an
exterior window to be a bedroomin Albert's view of things. And
so it tells me that they alwayshad in mind caretakers that were
a couple without children, andthat there was a change made

(37:55):
later because the people theyactually hired brought her
elderly mother with them.
And so they the place for theolder lady. But I began to
reflect on the fact that havingnonroyal children would have
completely bollixed up the wholesystem. Because even though the
royal children could throw offthe restraints of royalty, The

(38:15):
caretakers couldn't. They werenever allowed to forget that
those kids were royals and thatthey had to show deference to
them. And if they'd had theirown children who were required
to show deference to adults justby nature of their age, I think
the system would have brokendown somehow.
Amrita, can you tell us moreabout the times that you've

(38:37):
incorporated children in yourwork?

Annmarie Adams (38:40):
Well, I was thinking about that preparing
for the podcast thinking, well,I haven't really ever studied
children. Have I?

Abigail A. Van Slyck (38:47):
I thought of a few times.

Annmarie Adams (38:49):
I feel I've dabbled in children and
architecture. You and I, Abby,wrote something on children's
spaces, I don't know, in anothercentury for an encyclopedia. And
then I wrote this, paper on,Eichler houses in California
suggesting that the kitchen wasa kind of command center for
women and showing that thefamily didn't use the house at

(39:12):
all, how the the plans wouldsuggest, you know, that touches
on many of the themes you'vementioned. And then in my PhD
dissertation, which became thebook Architecture and the Family
Way, it was mostly about women,health and doctors. But, of
course, children are alwayspresent when you study women.
So those are the main ways. AndI teach a course on feminism and

(39:34):
architecture, so children arevery present there. The thing I
always tell students to explainthe prescriptive power of plans
that I learned from you, Abby,is that buildings are always
bossier when it comes to womenand children. You can read the
directions for women andchildren. They're so

(39:55):
exaggerated.
And I think that's reallyevident in your book, too, that
studying these elite houseswhere those instructions are
exaggerated is part of thatworld. Since I wrote the Eichler
paper, I've been completelyobsessed with how people use
buildings in ways that wereunintended. You know, I myself,

(40:15):
I I use my dining room in myVictorian era house as a place
to work, to do my Zoom calls,etcetera. So, I mean, we all do
that, and that's how I've gottenat children. Oh, I also forgot.
I did a major study of achildren's hospital in Toronto
where we gave 80 kids cameras,disposable cameras, and got them

(40:38):
to run around and document howthey used, atrium space. And
that was just an amazingproject. And that really
underlined for me how children'shospitals are really designed
for adults. The children thinkthat it's silly that there are
Disney characters in thebathroom or that the sinks are
smaller or that there are pigson trapezes in the middle of the

(41:00):
atrium. And we have to reallylook to Scandinavian hospitals
to get away from that.
Scandinavian hospitals,pediatric hospitals are
dignified, amazing buildings.And and I'm convinced that
that's why in Scandinavia,Architecture is so valued
because we they design forchildren at an early age in a

(41:21):
really noble way.

Abigail A. Van Slyck (41:24):
So the bossiness of space for women and
children, I think, is reallyinteresting. I think so many of
us got to children throughgender. Right? That we were
trying to understand women'slives. And in the cultures that
we were studying, that meantthat they were the, you know,
the primary caretakers, andthere was a lot of debate about
whether that should be the case.
Right? But I was also justthinking I mean, I've been

(41:46):
thinking about playgrounds thatwere established in the early
twentieth century, and it's allyou know, the discourse is all
about the what the childrenneed. And what I think no one is
actually saying is that it wasalso a way of marking the rest
of the city as the unmarked normfor white men. Right? And not
even for women somebody.
You know, I my students when wedo when we study the

(42:08):
establishment of women's roomsin libraries or in hotels or in
train stations, they are like,oh, and there are these new
spaces for women. I'm like, no.They used to be able to be
anywhere. This is the way ofsegregating women and telling
them that the rest of the cityis not for their use. So I think

(42:29):
that I think that's superinteresting to to, like, bring a
really open mind to those spacesthat are for a particular group.

Annmarie Adams (42:38):
Yeah. Well, now I'm studying older people in
long term care, which is a lotlike studying children in a way
as older people, especially withdementia, lose their sense of
orientation and need so much,guidance. And I'm so convinced
that long term care is onlydesigned for the families to
comfort them about stashingtheir their relative in an

(42:59):
institution and not at all aboutthe resident or the patient.
Very much like how the worlddesigns for children.

Abigail A. Van Slyck (43:08):
Are you meaning that the long term care
has kind of a inappropriategoofiness about it?

Annmarie Adams (43:14):
No. It's usually houseiness that you make it
look, like a house. You put arocking chair. You you now the
the new fad is that you putthese memory boxes at the
doorway and that the residentit's always the resident's
daughter who curates a littleexhibition about the person's
life. Research has shown thatstaff spends more time in the

(43:38):
rooms of residents that havememory boxes.
So it turns out in a circularway that it benefits the person
in bed, But it's really aboutcomforting the family. It's not
about what old people want intheir architecture. Anyway, it's
a continuing conundrum of how wedesign for vulnerable
populations.

Marta Gutman (43:59):
Oh, that's interesting. I'm just thinking
back now to forty years ago whenmy grandmother was my father's
mother was institutionalizedwith dementia in a pretty much
old fashioned nursing home, youknow, a reasonable one where
there was relatively reasonablecare. But we were told that it
would help her as she lost hermemory that if she had

(44:19):
photographs that brought herfamily to life displayed in her
room. And it was a very, verypainful for my father to put
that together, But he did, andhe did it, you know, in
deference to the expert councilthat said this is what you're
supposed to do, but it therewasn't a box. It wasn't curated.
It was just like a bulletinboard in in a hospital room that

(44:39):
was then covered withphotographs. I I wonder what to
what degree how that practicehas changed. Abby, I know this
is you've said this before aboutwhen you make space for a
particular group, you then tellthat person or that group that
they can't be somewhere else. Inmy book on kids using Oakland as
a case study, I make theargument about public buildings,

(45:00):
that in public spaces, that whenwe articulate the needs of
children publicly, whetherthrough play, through daycare
centers, through orphanages,through settlement houses,
whatever, after care centers, weare reminding the public of
their responsibility to care forchildren, that we don't
privatize children's needs indomestic settings. I believe

(45:21):
that very strongly that althoughwe may say, yes, you do belong
here, being a kid, this is whereyou're supposed to play, or this
is where you're supposed to goto after school or or so forth
and so on, That happens, butthat happens in the context of
cities and suburbs andcommunities that are being
differentiated all over theplace.
And if we don't represent theneeds of vulnerable populations

(45:45):
to larger urban publics, thentheir needs disappear. It's a
double edged or triple edgedsword. I know certainly in the
stories that I read aboutchildren in orphanages that
children found solace andcomfort and power in being in
institutions with people who arelike themselves, but that the

(46:06):
question that I received fromchildren who now adults who grew
up in orphanages, and most ofthem had one living parent
anyway, was not they were socalled half orphaned, was not
about the place where they werecared for. It was about the
family that abandoned them. AndI could never answer that
question, which is why did myfamily not step up and take care

(46:28):
of me?
It wasn't that I was put in aplace. It was that my family
abrogated responsibility, and II never had an answer. It
haunted me.

Abigail A. Van Slyck (46:38):
So it resonated with me, Marta, when I
think back to my library workand the fact that, you know,
these children's rooms were anew phenomenon, in the early
twentieth century. And thelibrarians had the middle class
librarians had assumed that theywere gonna have to kind of lure
the working class kids in. Theywere immigrant kids. They

(47:00):
wouldn't know. They didn't knowthe language they thought.
And so they you know? And infact, what what the reports are
is that the kids embrace thisspace as theirs completely and
just and had this great sense ofownership of it and sort of
would march in and, you know,demand the library card and, you

(47:20):
know, just made the placecompletely their own.

Marta Gutman (47:23):
I would say that I mean, that speaks to me
personally in terms of my use ofthe Carnegie Library in my town
of Nyack and how it became myplace on way on my way home from
school. I would stop there allthe time. It also speaks very
much so to the to the waystudents current students at
City College speak about publiclibraries now and how they serve
as way stations for them asanchors, as places where they

(47:46):
can go not only for books, butfor computers, for guidance, for
collective activity. They'resuper super important
institutions for children andyouth regardless of whether made
for them purposely or housed inparticular rooms within them.
They're critical institutionsfor them, critical places.
And so that brings me back toyour book and another question I

(48:07):
wanted to ask. Do you think thechildren's cottages serve to
advertise the needs of childrento bigger audiences? Do you
think they promoted the need totake care of children in
societies that were relativelyindifferent to the needs of
children on an institutionallevel? Do you think they worked

(48:27):
publicly that way?

Abigail A. Van Slyck (48:29):
What an interesting question.

Marta Gutman (48:32):
Because they have this enormous public life.
Right? I mean they're promotedin the newspapers. The parents
are really determined whetherthey're kings and queens or
industrialists or actresses orwhatever. They're determined to
let the public know that theyaren't making these places for
their kids, And so we can see itas a way of building status,
right, for sure, enunciatingclass privilege, etcetera,

(48:54):
etcetera.
That's very clear and verypowerful. But did they take on
another role? Did they work? Didthey capture the imaginary? Did
they have any other kind ofplace in public culture?

Abigail A. Van Slyck (49:08):
So yeah. I mean, I would say that part of
my argument at the very end ofthe book is that, so Shirley
Temple has a glass blockplayhouse that's given to her by
Owens Illinois because they'retrying to promote their product.
And a forward thinking woman whois the head of the New York
Infirmary for Infants andChildren, I think it was called,

(49:29):
decides to get a replica of itand put it on display at the New
York World's Fair in hopes ofmaking enough money to actually
build a children's hospital forit. And that doesn't work. That
that this strategy does notreally work.
But, I mean, part of my argumentis that, you know, the guy who
oversaw that fair, thechildren's world at that fair,
is also the director ofPlayland. And so decides that,

(49:52):
you know, he built a playhousethere, I think. I'm not exactly
sure of the timing. That papertrail was not really clear, But
I think it's his doing. And itdoesn't look anything like
Shirley Temple's Playhouse, butI think that it becomes more
commonplace.
I think the stars of stage andscreen do a lot for really
saying this is something you canaspire to. I we're living the

(50:15):
good life. We have a swimmingpool that's built in. You can
have a doughboy. We have abarbecue pit.
You can have a grill. We havethis vast lawn. You can have a
little yard. And we have thiskind of playhouse, and you can
have this kind of playhouse. Andyou can buy yours for my kit.
I had a cloth one. I had a thingthat went over, card table when

(50:38):
I was growing up that could bemy playhouse. So I think there
is I think there is some ofthat.

Annmarie Adams (50:44):
Abby, I still have my table cloth house. It
goes over the card table. Mymother made it. She was so proud
of it with little lace curtainsand oh, and, magic marker
drawing for the bricks.

Abigail A. Van Slyck (50:57):
Wow. Mine was store bought.

Marta Gutman (51:00):
I guess what I'm wondering is whether these
buildings and the promotion ofthem in any way contributed to a
reformed discourse that saidchildren do need places to play
and we do need in the face of agrowing durable play space,
informally handled to begin withby children just making places
for themselves, as cities becomemore specialized, more

(51:24):
developed, streets become moredominant, traffic becomes more
deadly, children become morehighly valued, that we do need
to think carefully about how weplan, build, and make places for
kids in modern cities. I wonderif they had any impact on that
thinking. I I I don't know thatthere's any way to measure it,
but I find it fascinating tothink about.

Abigail A. Van Slyck (51:46):
I mean, I think about the fact that the
playhouses seem to me kind ofthe middle class domesticated
mode of play on steroids. That,you know, one of the differences
is that there is room in middleclass domestic houses for
children to play and to playwith things that are store
bought. It is a way of themplaying in a somewhat isolated

(52:08):
manner or with a handful ofcarefully chosen playmates, but
that their play is is controlledby adults sort of in that way.
And I think of the playhouses asbeing just sort of in that line.
I feel like in post warsuburbia, that kind of playscape
was taken up by schools.

(52:29):
Like, it made its way intomunicipal thinking, I think, by
way of the playground movement.

Marta Gutman (52:35):
Yeah. I did. I can tell you that for sure. Good.

Abigail A. Van Slyck (52:39):
That so I'm not sure to what extent the
playhouses that I studycontributed to that. But maybe.

Marta Gutman (52:48):
Maybe. There's a super interesting history of the
relationship of public schoolsand public school development
and graded education and playthat is yet to be written. It
will come. In New York City inthe eighteen forties and
fifties, architects are thinkingabout where play happens in
public schools. Basicallythey're putting them in

(53:09):
basements and cellars, roofscome much later, but one of the
great challenges that is facedis the cost of land and how to
assign the space that's neededfor play properly in crowded
public schools would requireland acquisition costs that no
city, well, New York City isn'twilling to expand.

(53:30):
And there are lots of there'slots of discussion about that.
But it's, it's tangled with withregard to the buildings at that
moment and starting at thebeginning of the movement for
public schools, but playgroundsthemselves, which are largely
produced in public in Americancities by women and women's
organizations become integratedin the progressive era in

(53:50):
departments of parks andrecreation. And there's a big
battle between boards ofeducation and between parks and
rec about who's going to controlthose spaces. And it actually
endures because there areplaygrounds on school grounds
that are covered by schools, andthen there are the playgrounds
and parks that are run by parksand rec and they don't
collaborate easily. But what Isee is that overall, we don't

(54:13):
have enough place for kids toplay.
Regardless of who's running theplaygrounds, the dearth of open
space for children to play ofany age, is remarkable and
really tragic and really tellingof our values.

Kate Solomonson (54:28):
So jumping from there to the mid twentieth
century for a moment, one of thethings that intrigues me and
intrigues me all the more fromhaving read your book, Abby, is
the way that, play hasinfiltrated adult culture or at
least adult elite culture to acertain extent. I'm thinking,
for example, Abby, you'vecommented before on the the ways

(54:52):
that some of Eames's the Eamesfurniture is really low and
changes the way, adults sit andso on. If you could say
something about that, then I'lljump off from that into another
phenomenon. Okay?

Abigail A. Van Slyck (55:07):
Sounds that sounds like a team effort
worth pursuing. I think we'vehad conversations in the past
where I have offered this offthe cuff theory that in the
nineteenth century, the middleclass goal was to get your
children to act like adults asquickly as possible, you know,
putting them up in a high chairso that they didn't interfere

(55:28):
with the dinner table, puttingthem on display. I mean, making
them visible, but also sort ofkeeping them contained so that
they didn't disrupt the adultparlor or the adult goings on.
In the twentieth century, Ithink that gets turned on its
head somewhat and where adultsare encouraged to act more and
more like children. And so youpoint to one example that I

(55:50):
always love is that the way thatmid century modern furniture is
really low to the ground.
Like, the floor plane had oncebeen the plane of children.
Like, that's where children gotto crawl around and that adults
sort of take that over. And Iswear there are pictures of,
Charles and Ray Eames sitting oncushions, like, on the floor of

(56:11):
their Pacific Palisades house.Right? So there's that.
There's the way that adults takeover blue jeans, which had been
youth wear. And now every oldlady has on her blue jeans. And
and I think of it, you know,that there's sort of a
playfulness. I mean, the factthat so much of modernism
claimed to take on the visuallanguage of childhood. I mean,

(56:34):
they were simultaneouslyinventing it and saying it was
the visual language ofchildhood, but they were
simultaneously saying this isthe visual language of childhood
and let's put it into adultobjects as well.
And, you know, just sort of ayouthfulness, a general valuing
of of youth culture, over age.

Kate Solomonson (56:53):
So, jumping off of that, one of the things I've
I've been thinking about isplace spaces within the
headquarters of high-techcompanies like Google, like
Apple. As I was thinking aboutthis, I tapped some of my
friends who work in those placesto see if my perceptions were
correct and that, or is it justrumor? So you need to imagine a

(57:16):
slide, connecting two floors ina in a Google building. But even
earlier, it was reallyinteresting to me. Hewlett
Packard, and this might havebeen as early as the nineteen
sixties, had hobby huts for itsemployees.
And, you know, some of that, wasconnected to, you know, people
who were inventing thingsliterally in their garages and,

(57:39):
basically to create spaces forcreativity and invention. And it
made me think about this bookyou edited, Abby, designing the
creative child by Amy O'Gotta.Some of those people in the
later twentieth century going onto extend their play in into
their work in a variety of ways.And I could I could go into what

(58:02):
they've said to me about, videogames, and acid rock and how all
those things come together. But,basically, it's it's just
striking how we have meetingpods, play pods, the slide,
various kinds of places topursue play in high-tech
headquarters and, possibly inother places and how also how

(58:28):
the media has gobbled that upand represented it.
So I think that there's room forresearch here in connecting what
you're talking about withchanges in modernist furniture.
I think of of that is bringingadults closer to the ground,
brings them closer to the planeof children so that perhaps
they're closer to their childrenwhen they're standing up and,

(58:50):
you know, bringing them down toa a child's scale to a certain
extent. It's also something thatmay be invented and reinvented
in adult culture as well. This,comes out of my thinking about
how have adults, elite adults,been, using their children as a
way of advancing their position.But that led me, you know, right

(59:13):
back into the representation ofthose adults, pursuing childlike
play and creativity.

Abigail A. Van Slyck (59:20):
Well, I mean, I think it that you remind
me of Louise Bozingo's work,right, where she argues that the
corporate campus was in part toattract college grads, right,
who've gotten used to having acertain kinds of amenities on
their college campuses. Andtherefore, you know, IBM or
whoever had John Deere had toprovide those kinds of

(59:40):
environments in order to attractworkers. And I think we've seen
lots of that take off. Right? Imean, I think college campuses
are in great competition withone another to provide really
great recreational facilitiesfor their students.
If Louise is right about howthis works, then that makes
sense that that then informs thethe adult workplace as well.

Annmarie Adams (01:00:02):
Well, I think it's part of the what Barbara
Penner has called thecosification of the public
sphere. I don't know where shepublished it, but I saw it
before it was published. Andshe's documented all these
places, like public libraries inLondon in particular that have
beanbag chairs and, cushions onthose big staircases that you're
supposed to sit on, not go up.And I think she suggests that

(01:00:25):
it's in competition with cafes,like sort of Starbucks
atmospheres in public places. Insome places, you're allowed to
bring your your dog and yourcoffee, and I think it's about
more than just play.
Playrooms don't appear inhospitals until the nineteen
eighties. So the play takesplace in wards or other places.

Marta Gutman (01:00:47):
Well, one thinking about Kate's comment and then
also Anne Marie's is a generalcomment about the interiority of
play or the interiorization ofplay. And I guess this would
sort of disregard my commentearlier about playgrounds
because playgrounds are public.Right? You can see what's
happening regardless of who youare. But in the case of the
children's cottages, in the caseof the Google whatever playroom

(01:01:08):
they have for adults, they'reinterior spaces, and you can
only know what's happening inthem if you're in them or if you
get privileged pictures of them.
So the performance is for a veryselect audience in both cases
and that interiority andencapsulation of the activity,
thinking back now to yourcomment about performance, Abby,

(01:01:29):
means that it's highly highlyprivileged and the sharing of
the knowledge is highlyorchestrated. And so while I
actually do think that the eliteplayhouses and cottages did work
in broader culture to popularizethe notion of play and its
acceptability as a properactivity for kids and so forth
and so on, it does so in a verydifferent way than a playground

(01:01:52):
would because a playground is infact not controllable even
though people make plenty ofattempts to do so. So you can't
hide it. You can't control it.You can't control the knowledge
about it in the way that you canthe children's cottage, the
children's playhouse, or jumpingahead to now the Google
headquarters for adults or evenall those commercial play play
spaces that proliferate from the1950s onward.

(01:02:16):
I mean, Gary Cross writes aboutthem, you know, a lot. I think
there's something reallyimportant there about
interiority and interiority as asignal. I'm not sure if it's a
sign or a symbol, but asevidence of privilege and
accruing privilege and thediffusion of that into into
popular culture. Right?

Kate Solomonson (01:02:34):
I mean, I think that's key, Marta. In these
corporate buildings, we'relooking at spaces that the
corporations control. Theydesign them and set them up, to
encourage certain kinds ofinteractions and, to cultivate
creativity that is containedwithin these spaces and that,
you know, becomes, translatedinto intellectual property

(01:02:55):
eventually.

Marta Gutman (01:02:57):
And the employee thinks the employee is getting
all this great gift, this freestuff, right? But in fact, the
employee is caught in a netthat's just as exploitative as
the nineteenth century factory.Think about play and how it
moves through cultures indifferent ways and the
importance of architecture inthat process. All because of
your book, Abby.

Annmarie Adams (01:03:16):
One thing we haven't really talked about that
I think is really key is,children's mobility. So we talk
about the house in thenineteenth century, the late
nineteenth century is the oneI've worked on. And then you
have the invention of theperambulator or stroller, as we
would call it, which is soliberating for women because
middle class women can then walkmiles and miles and miles from

(01:03:38):
home and not be tired, not carrybabies, meet their friends with
babies, probably in publicparks, basically get away from
the home. And there are lots ofdevices for children that
children love, like bicycles andscooters and even those little
cars that are about mobility. Sodid these elite children of

(01:04:01):
yours, Abby, did they try to getaway from home?

Abigail A. Van Slyck (01:04:04):
Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, one of the
questions that someone posed tome in preparation for this
conversation is, you know, didthese children use these sites
in ways that their parentsdidn't anticipate? And all I can
say is I'm sure they did, butthe evidence is really hard for
me to uncover for these thingsbecause the evidence comes from

(01:04:26):
either posed photographs orfamily letters. There's quite a
bit of correspondence from thegoverness who will write about
what the kids are doing, andthey're doing everything they
should under the governess'sexpert care.
Or these letters I have betweensiblings, but they're reporting
on activities that they've donewith their parents. But I will
also say so if you read thenewspaper coverage about

(01:04:50):
Princess Elizabeth, the latequeen, the news would have you
believe that she was happiestbeing a little domestic creature
in this cottage. I think one ofthe reasons it doesn't feature
very much in the early seasonsof The Crown is that she didn't
care very I don't think it washer the center of her being. I

(01:05:11):
think horses and dogs were thecenter of her existence. I think
the horse, right, is the waythat elites get away in a way
that is considered classappropriate and that their
parents can approve of, and theycan learn polo and other things
and, you know, and socializewith the right kinds of people,
but still get away from home.

(01:05:32):
The Vanderbilt kids used to, youknow, take a little pony cart
and get away from the breakersand go to other land that the
family owned where they, youknow, that there was farmland
that they could get away to. Ithink they did want to be very,
very mobile.

Annmarie Adams (01:05:50):
My other question I've been dying to say
is, you know, as a Canadian, I'ma subject of the crown. He's my
queen, and he's my king whetherI like it or not. But he's not
your queen. They're not yourqueen. And can you have this
revolution?

Abigail A. Van Slyck (01:06:05):
I'm aware of that.

Annmarie Adams (01:06:08):
Yes. I was kinda wondering, but, so can you just
say a little bit about the linkyou've made between the British
houses and the American onesskipping over the Canadian ones?

Abigail A. Van Slyck (01:06:21):
I'd be happy to skip over the Canadian
situation. I, you know, Istarted this project by working
on the Vanderbilts and in thecourse of that work became aware
of the Swiss Cottage. So becameintrigued by that. There are
some other royal Europeanexamples, some of which are
connected to Victoria. You know,they're her offspring who do

(01:06:43):
them.
It's clear to me that AmericanAmerican elites were looking to
the British for their ideasabout what constituted elegance,
what constituted high classbehavior. I think about this
area in, Long Island and NewYork where in the late
nineteenth century, the verybest hotels were called Osborne

(01:07:03):
and the Isle Of Wight. And she'son the throne for so long,
right, that you really peoplecould get really invested in her
and in what she was up to. Andthere was this back and forth. I
mean, early on in our careers,Anne Marie, you and I co chaired
a session at SAH because we wereso aware that there was so much
conversation going on across theAtlantic about progressive

(01:07:26):
reform that it made perfectsense to us that we would
actually make that the focus ofthe of the session.
And I think the same thing isgoing on. That one of the
reasons that all the Vanderbiltpushes so hard for her daughter,
Consuelo, to marry the Duke ofMarlborough is because a British
Duke is, like, the prize. Thatthat's the highest prize. Some

(01:07:49):
others, they have to make dowith royalties from other
European countries. But if youcould tag a Brit, you know, that
would be, the the best thingthat they could think of.
And that you know, I I thinkabout books like the gentleman's
house. Right? A a book that'sall about how elite houses are
arranged in Britain and how thatis sort of digested in The US

(01:08:13):
and informs so much of the waythat country houses are arranged
and the principles are are,like, internalized really
deeply, in The United States.And so it made sense to me to go
a little bit of back and forth.

Annmarie Adams (01:08:28):
Just forget that revolution.

Abigail A. Van Slyck (01:08:32):
So what was interesting to me I mean,
having been a person who startedher career working on public
libraries where you walk intothe place that you're trying to
study and an American publiclibrarian hands you the file
that she's you know, she says, Iknew someone would ask that
question eventually. Here'severything I've been saving.
Right? And what can I get you inhere? You know?
And and, you know, the libraryis yours. To go to the royal

(01:08:56):
archives at Windsor Castle wherethey don't have account and they
don't have finding aids, or ifthey have finding aids, they
don't let me look at them.Right? That you tell them what
your topic is, and they pullthings off the shelf and tell
you what you can look at. Andthat that was huge to me that
there is such a difference insort of how you deal with the

(01:09:18):
library user and the the kind ofcontrol that they maintain over
information.
And it just makes me wanna goback and rewrite the
introduction to my library bookand, and really cheer cheer on
American public libraries in amuch in a much more robust way.
Yeah.

Annmarie Adams (01:09:34):
The next edition.

Abigail A. Van Slyck (01:09:35):
The next edition. Thank you.

Marta Gutman (01:09:38):
So just as a side note, I would say to you Abby
and Ann Marie that I am evergrateful for you for accepting
my first S. A. H. Paper to thatsession on transatlantic reform
in the progressive era. That'show I met you and where I met
you.
Well, I how I met you wasthrough the session and where I
met you was where I thinkPhiladelphia where the
conference was being held. Sothe circles are are long and

(01:10:01):
enduring. Long and enduring.That's just the gratitude.

Abigail A. Van Slyck (01:10:05):
Well, maybe on that note, with us all
in such a happy go lucky mood,we could pull this to a close.
It has been just amazing havingthe opportunity to talk with you
three and to say publicly howgrateful I am for the model of
scholarship that you've providedme over all these years, for the
fact that you've been willing toread the manuscript in so many

(01:10:27):
different iterations, and reallypush me in ways that without
your nudging, the book wouldn'tbe nearly as good as it is. So
I'm really, really grateful andhappy to have you in my circle.
Thank you.

Annmarie Adams (01:10:41):
Back at you, Abby.

Marta Gutman (01:10:42):
Yes. Absolutely. Same for

Narrator (01:10:45):
sure. This has been a University of Minnesota Press
production. The book Playhousesand Privilege, the Architecture
of Elite Childhood by Abby VanSlyke is available from
University of Minnesota Press.Thank you for listening.