Division: Upper School
Role: History Department Head
Teaches: Various Middle and Upper School History classes, including electives on the histories of nonviolence and utopia and a J-Term course on children’s play.
Rob Goldberg is Head of the History Department at Germantown Friends School. This summer, he traveled to Augsburg, Germany, where he delivered a keynote address at the International Toy Research Association (ITRA) World Conference after receiving the Senior Prize for Outstanding Toy Research for his book, Radical Play: Revolutionizing Children's Toys in 1960s and 1970s America, which has won a number of other awards, as well.
Receiving the ITRA book prize… was such a wonderful surprise! My book was published in 2023, so receiving this recognition from an international group of scholars three years later was an incredible honor.
What makes ITRA dynamic... is its cross-disciplinary nature. Historians, developmental psychologists, educational researchers, sociologists, and anthropologists are all sharing ideas. A psychologist’s insight on cognitive development can shift how I interpret historical evidence, while a historical perspective gives contemporary researchers new lenses for their work.
Connecting toy and game history to the classroom... gives students a novel entry point into historical analysis. Whether analyzing board games that represent competing nations or examining the cultural evolution of tabletop games, students learn to take play seriously through cultural artifacts. It bridges what they loved in childhood with broader historical and social themes.
My passion for toy history originally stems from... a 1972 multimedia album called Free To Be… You and Me, produced by actress Marlo Thomas and funded by the Ms. Foundation, which was co-founded by Gloria Steinem. One song about a boy who wanted a doll sparked my curiosity about how social movements—including feminism, civil rights, and the peace movement—challenged the toy industry over issues such as gender stereotypes, war toys, and racial representation.
My next research project will explore... the role of toys and play in utopian communities, focusing on the Olivetti company town in Ivrea, Italy. Established in the late 1930s by anti-fascist, humanistic leadership, the community built a progressive school in 1939 with modern child-development spaces. I am investigating how humanistic and anti-fascist ideals were woven directly into the design of children's play environments and toys.