Meat carcasses hang from the rafters. There's blood and sawdust on the floor. Doll-sized butchers stand in front, looking severe. (One is even holding a knife.) A historical mock-up for a museum, you think? Nope. This is an actual toy butcher shop for kids, circa 1850, and it was a runaway hit at the time.
Collectors Weekly has a terrific little article on their website right now on the history of toy food. Regarding the meat market playsets, they cite a 1969 book by Robert Culff, The World of Toys, who writes that Victorian children were not very squeamish:
...these "exact representations of butchers' shops" were very popular, "with their modeled joints, strings of sausages, and whole animal carcasses hanging from real iron hooks, tier by tier, 'round the wooden butcher and his two assistants in their striped aprons." He explains that it must have been satisfying "taking down and wrapping Sunday joints for one's brothers and sisters, and presumably a certain amount about the prime cuts of meat was learned painlessly in the doing of it."
In fact, miniature playsets of all kinds were popular in Victorian times.
...elaborate and accurate little replicas were modeled for every store in town: the draper, the greengrocer, the fishmonger, the baker, the milliner's full of bonnets and hat boxes, and the sweet shop featuring "uncertainly balanced scales, jars of hundreds-and-thousands [a.k.a. sprinkles] and cachou lozenges in little tins smelling of ghostly roses and violets."
If graphic butcher shop toys seems strange to our 21st century sensibilities, let's consider for a moment: the writer for the Collectors Weekly article, Lisa Hix, recalls coveting her friend's 1982 Barbie McDonald's playset. As she writes,
In the 19th century, kids were taught how to purchase select cuts from fresh cow carcasses. A hundred years later, they were encouraged to consume overly processed ground beef and trans-fatty French fries from a fast-food behemoth. Which is worse, really?
Read the whole article and then come back and tell us what you think!
Read More: Baby's First Butcher Shop, Circa 1900 at Collectors Weekly
Related: Always, Sometimes, Never? Questioning Your Meat's Origin
(Images: Collectors Weekly)
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Thanks for sharing! As a lover of history (especially Victorian) and food, this was a delightful read. And a great point was made at the end. But I won't lie. It is still a bit weird to see this as a toy....
This is awesome, and these days it would be a good way to give kids a better idea of how their food gets to their plate.
This isn't surprising to me... Those dolls from the dolls houses have to go out somewhere! Also, the dolls houses where often impressive replicas of the owners actual house. I seem to remember playing with a small grocers stand when I was little - probably at a family friends house.
I should also mention that while normally hundreds and thousands equate to sprinkles, in sweet shop terms hundreds and thousands are tiny sweets (candies) also sometimes known as sherbet pips. Tiny (about a quarter inch) balls in pastels colours of fruit flavoured candy. They were (and still are every now and then!) my favourite- so many sweeties in a quarter!
@litnerd
It might be more helpful if parent's would take their children to the farms and slaughter houses to give them an understanding of where their food really comes from.
Most families don't buy their meat from Victorian butcher shops.
The Toy & Miniature Museum in Kansas City has an entire room full of these Victorian occupational toy sets.
They also have a large closet full of nothing but Noah's Ark play sets, because that was the only toy proper Victorian children were allowed to play with on Sundays. Can you even imagine?
Hey @carrotsticks nice way to put in the PETA/vegan message.... 'take your kids to an slaughter house' Why not to a Amish or Mennonite farm or farm market?
I could just see Fisher-Price offering this next Christmas.....
....no, wait.....
@stan s.
Firstly, I did not say "an slaughter house", thank you.
Secondly, I grew up with Mennonite neighbours (we leased our land to them to grow corn). As well, I went to school with many Mennonite and Amish kids who decided to go to high school (both old order and new order). The local market had a stock yard where animals were sold in an auction ring. My high school still has an area for horse & buggy parking (that is still used).
I think it's a good experience for kids to see these things first-hand. Seeing where the animals are raised, where they're sold (alive), where they're killed, where they're processed... that's how they end up on your plate. I have witnessed all this first hand (many times).
And yes, Mennonites use commerical slaughter houses if they are going to sell their meat. At least here in Canada they must to in order to meet regulations. Although, 99% of meat that is produced/purchased is not from Mennonite or Amish farms, rather, it's almost always from a factory farm.
Nowhere did I mention PETA or being vegan. I just don't think toys that idealize a Victorian butcher shop are all that helpful to a child in understanding where their food comes from.
My mom and grandmother used to have an exquisite collection of girls' (and boys') toys ranging from 1850 to 1930. They had the most beautiful little shops, doll houses and china, and a collection of larger fashion dolls. It was made into a museum here in Belgium in 2007, but they sadly sold the collection a few months ago on an auction in San Francisco.
@CARROTSTICKS
Haha, good point, but I was thinking of very small children who might not be ready to see the real deal. Seeing animal parts and talking about what a butcher does would be a good way of introducing kids to the idea that their food comes from somewhere. Seeing the larger cuts can give them some context before they're ready to see a slaughter house.
Also, full disclosure: my mother was a butcher and I have skinned and butchered my own meat. If I have children, they will do the same at least once, and if it drives them to vegetarianism, they have my blessing. I personally avoid factory farmed meat, which means I eat vegetarian about 90% of the time anyway.