section_path: History/Enlightenment Era
section_name: Enlightenment Era
paragraph_text: Enlightenment Era
  
  Toys became more widespread with changing Western attitudes towards children and childhood brought about by the Enlightenment. Previously, children had often been thought of as small adults, who were expected to work in order to produce the goods that the family needed to survive. As children's culture scholar Stephen Kline has argued, Medieval children were "more fully integrated into the daily flux of making and consuming, of getting along. They had no autonomy, separate statuses, privileges, special rights or forms of social comportment that were entirely their own."
  
  As these ideas began changing during the Enlightenment Era, blowing bubbles from leftover washing up soap became a popular pastime, as shown in the painting The Soap Bubble (1739) by Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, and other popular toys included hoops, toy wagons, kites, spinning wheels and puppets. Many board games were produced by John Jefferys in the 1750s, including A Journey Through Europe. The game was very similar to modern board games; players moved along a track with the throw of a die (a teetotum was actually used) and landing on different spaces would either help or hinder the player.
  
  In the nineteenth century, Western values prioritized toys with an educational purpose, such as puzzles, books, cards and board games. Religion-themed toys were also popular, including a model Noah's Ark with miniature animals and objects from other Bible scenes. With growing prosperity among the middle class, children had more leisure time on their hands, which led to the application of industrial methods to the manufacture of toys.
  
  More complex mechanical and optical -based toys were also invented during the nineteenth century. Carpenter and Westley began to mass-produce the kaleidoscope, invented by Sir David Brewster in 1817, and had sold over 200,000 items within three months in London and Paris. The company was also able to mass-produce magic lanterns for use in phantasmagoria and galanty shows, by developing a method of mass production using a copper plate printing process. Popular imagery on the lanterns included royalty, flora and fauna, and geographical/man-made structures from around the world. The modern zoetrope was invented in 1833 by British mathematician William George Horner and was popularized in the 1860s. Wood and porcelain dolls in miniature doll houses were popular with middle-class girls, while boys played with marbles and toy trains.