German Toy Tradition
Schoenhut's circus was one of the early playsets that included a wide variety of people, animals and accessories. Although playsets are common today, a hundred years ago only a dollhouse or a collection of Noah's ark animals had as much variety.
Germany has a long history of making wooden toys, dating back to the mid-1600s. The area known as the Erzgebirge near Dresden had a long tradition of wooden toys cut out on lathes. These toys usually were animals and people. They were not poseable like our collection of Schoenhut circus figures, but they were their "ancestors." These early German wooden figures were often farm animals or pairs of animals that came with their own Noah's ark.
About a hundred years ago, German companies started making toys out of stamped tin and metal. Many of these could be wound up and move, much like the American-made stamped metal circus toys you see in this exhibit.
