Ives Railway Line

When buying toys, it is common for parents to assume that their child will like certain things and not others based on their gender. Advertisers fuel these assumptions: Girls like dolls and boys like sports equipment, for instance. Sometimes these stereotypes are accurate, and sometimes they’re not. A century ago in the 1920s, toys were advertised based on expected gender choices, so model train sets were marketed for boys. A 1925 catalog in the museum’s collection was even titled “Ives Toys Make Happy Boys.”

 

But it was this train’s destiny to make a little girl happy! The museum acquired this special white standard-gauge Ives Passenger Set in 1974 as part of a large model train collection from Robert Vickers of Anderson, Indiana. It is a limited-edition model that was produced in the 1920s for display in stores but not listed in the Ives catalog for general sale. But the original owner was a little girl, whose father reportedly convinced the Indianapolis retailer to sell it to him as a gift for his daughter.