The Safe and Rational Children’s Playground: Strategies and Technologies Since the Nineteenth Century

Between the late nineteenth and early twenty-first centuries the evolution of playgrounds in the United States was shaped by both ideology and technology. Advocates agreed that playgrounds should control and instruct children, but disagreed on the way to accomplish those goals: the extreme positions marked by a commitment to the principles of ‘Efficiency’ or the ideal of recreation. The technology of playgrounds, both the sites and the equipment, changed only slowly, but both steel and wooden devices of traditional design and newer forms of sculptural modernism became central to a developing discourse over dangers to users. Ironically, playgrounds had initially been touted as safe alternatives to play on city streets. After World War II they too were overtaken by the larger risk-aversion that came to mark American culture. This article has been peer-reviewed.