An Analysis of a Mickey Trapeze Toy
Mickey Mouse - and Disney products in general - seem to have been popular
in America since the cartoons first originated. Disney products are a
favorite of children and parents alike. The Depression does not seem to
be any different in this respect. Thus, a typical American blue-collar
family living in Greenbelt would provide its children with a Mickey Mouse
Trapeze toy. By contemporary standards, the toy is hardly entertaining.
Simply flipping Mickey over is not terribly amusing. Nontheless, it seems
that this was, indeed, amusing to a child of the 1930's. The toy itself
looks as if it is made of plastic or metal, both cheap materials that are
conducive to mass production. The individual parts were probably cast in
molds, and might have been hand painted or machine dyed. Thus, like the
other three toy aritifacts, this object is typcial of the Depression in
that it was inexpensive. It is representative of Greenbelt in that Disney
products were of a very wholesome nature, derived from the old fashioned
values expressed in Disney films and cartoons. The parents of Greenbelt
would not have felt uneasy about buying their children Mickey Mouse toys,
unlike contemporary parents that run the risk of buying Super Killer Man
with the new Exploding Abdomen.
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