Desired Childhoods: Imported Toys, Aspirational Consumption, and Social Modernization in Republican Lima (1885-1920)

Abstract

This article explores how imported toys in Lima between 1885 and 1920 became symbols of social distinction within a broader context of modernization and class consolidation. Drawing on documentary, visual, and museographic sources, it analyzes how children’s consumption practices reflected and reinforced social hierarchies. It argues that the unequal access to toys —from luxurious European dolls to handmade or improvised objects— articulated aspirational models of childhood. The study concludes that play was not a neutral activity, but rather a space shaped by discourses of class, modernity, and cultural capital.