With a background in metal mechanical toys, Louis Marx established his company in 1919 and it continued until 1978. During World War II material restrictions enacted by the War Production Board (WPB), such as metal, dampened toy production. By the late 1940s, several manufacturers were producing metal dollhouses; when Marx released superior dollhouses in 1949, notable catalogues, like Sears and Montgomery Ward, sold them exclusively. Lithographed on tin sheet metal, folded, and secured with metal tabs or, later plastic fasteners, these easy to manufacture, lightweight, and vividly colored one or two-storey dollhouses featured directions that warned adult assembly was required and included pastel, injection-molded plastic furniture.
Marx’s dollhouses from the early 1950s through the late 1960s depict this often-fraught, ubiquitous suburbia. The baby boom and subsequent housing shortage pressured modern architects to rethink the ways in which Americans live. Housing became accessible to many families through government programs like the Housing Act of 1949 which dismissed modern designs as fads and poor investments, and so preferred revival styles or the ranch. In the early years of prefabrication, many developers responded with inferior construction at high prices (made affordable through financing by Federal Housing Administration) to meet the surmounting demands. Other developers, like Levitt and Son, answered by adapting modern construction techniques to existing styles. Consequently, postwar, suburban, track housing flooded the landscape with ranches, colonial revivals, breezeways, and split-levels. In addition to the ideals of efficiency and cleanliness, embedded within their designs were ideals of mass-produced democracy and individuality. Likewise, by utilizing Marx dollhouses, furniture, and advertisements, this paper shows how postwar dollhouses were not limited to mimicking architectural forms and styles, but included new manufacturing technologies and small, interchangeable pieces to enhance design diversity.
About the presenterFrederika Eilers
Frederika Eilers is a research assistant and PhD candidate in architecture at McGill University. She is researching the architecture of dollhouses to investigate relationships between modernisms, models, gender norms, playrooms, and toys. When she was recognized as a Étudiants-chercheurs étoiles from the Fonds de recherche du Québec Société et culture for her article “Barbie versus Le Modulor: Ideal Bodies, Buildings, and Typical Users” in Girlhood Studies (2012), journalist Jean-François Venne wrote: “Pour elle, la recherche doit nécessairement avoir un impact social.” Accordingly, her research intends to make the field of architecture more accessible to girls and women.
On the other end of the age spectrum, Frederika works as research assistant on “Re-imagining Long-term care” a SSHR MCRI grant lead by Pat Armstrong. Due to strong interest in material culture, she has been a research fellow at the Winterthur Museum (2011) and the National Museum of Play (2013). At McGill she also has been a co-convenor for two reading groups at the Institute for the Public Life of Arts and Ideas called “Designing Diversity” (2011) and “City and Memory” (2012). Recent conference papers include “Kitchen Technologies as Domestic Innovation in Dollhouses: modernization, modernism, and modernity from 1910-1940”, “Model House, Miniature Home: the do-it-yourself architecture of dollhouses and models of 1940-1980”, and “Room to Play: Ventilation, Cleanliness, and Individuality” (2013).
Previously, Frederika earned a post-professional master of architecture in the cultural mediations and technology program at McGill (2010) and a professional bachelor of architecture (2006) from Syracuse University. She worked at CSD Architects, Inc. (2006-2009), KPN Architects, LLC (2010-2011), LaBella Associates, P.C. (2005-2006), and Flynn Battaglia, P.C. (2004) designing educational facilities and long-term care which attained citations from the Maryland Chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council and Design for Aging Review.