Figure 1.--This is a stereo card of a boy in the family livingroom meaning it was taken by a professional photographer. Indoors family snapshots were relatively rare until mid-century. This photograph was probably taken about 1920.

Toy trains began to appear almost as soon as actual trains (mid-19th century). Model railrosing was a 20th century development with the appearance of electraon toy trains. The photographic recirds does not acurately reflect this development. For this you not only needed the family snapshot, but an easy way of taking indoor phptographs. The Kodak Brownie provided an easy way of taking family snapshots (1900). But the slow speed of the film emulsions meant that for the most part the photographs has to be taken outdoors with sunlight. Professional photographers could take photigraphs indoors, but this was difficuilt fir the ordinary person with a box camera. And of course the model train sets were all indoors. Only at mid-century do simple flash bulb arrangements become available for the ordinary person. As a result we suddentlky begin to see kage numbers iof phorographs like the boys here and their pooch (figure 1). This cinibcidedvwith the oeak of amerivan railroads. This all caught model railroading train sets at their peakl of popularity. This began to decline after the 1960s and railrpads were declining. Aircraft captured more and nore if boys' omaginations. Abd of course there was no hime sets for aircraft beyond building models, only a few of which coukd actually fly. By the end ig the century it was a much less important toy and activity for boys.

Created: 9:07 AM 7/13/20200
Last updated: 9:07 AM 7/13/2020