(1560) Through history, children played in their villages and neighbourhoods, especially in the streets and lanes near their homes. The painting
Children's Games (1560) shows children playing in multiple ways in the streets and fields of an imaginary Dutch townscape.
Nineteenth-century playgrounds In the 19th century, developmental psychologists such as
Friedrich Fröbel proposed playgrounds as a developmental aid to instill in children a sense of fair play and good manners. In Germany, a few playgrounds were erected near schools. In the 1840s in Britain, the Home and Colonial Infant School had a playground for pupils that included climbing structures, seesaws, and parallel bars.
Thomas Carlyle called for the establishment of public playgrounds within industrial cities such as
Manchester, England, in
Past and Present (1843), saying that "every toiling Manchester" ought to have "a hundred acres or so of free greenfield, with trees on it, conquered, for its little children to disport in". The first purpose-built public playgrounds were subsequently created in 1846 in
Peel Park in Salford and Queen’s Park and
Philips Park in Manchester. Later in the 19th century, the
Metropolitan Public Gardens Association (1882) became an important advocate for children's playgrounds in London, in part at least to provide a steady supply of healthy, strong working-class children for the army, navy, and factories. One of the first playgrounds in the United States was built in
San Francisco's
Golden Gate Park in 1887.
Twentieth century playgrounds Playgrounds in Britain The engineer and philanthropist
Charles Wicksteed became an important advocate for children's playgrounds from the 1920s onward. He manufactured robust equipment, including swings, slides, and other playground equipment. The National Playing Fields Association also promoted playgrounds across the middle of the century (one of its founding aims was to "secure proper playgrounds for children"), which in their mind equated to manufactured equipment. In post-war
London, pioneering designers, charities and child advocates, including
Lady Allen of Hurtwood, popularised the concept of the "junk playground", where children played with rubble, built structures and invented their own entertainment. 'Bombsites and waste ground were transformed into hives of activity by children and progressive educationalists.' Allen campaigned for play facilities for children growing up in the new
high-rise developments in Britain's cities and wrote a series of illustrated books on the subject of playgrounds, and at least one book on adventure playgrounds, spaces for free creativity by children, which helped the idea spread worldwide. In 2019, there were more than 26,000 children's playgrounds in the UK. began in
Nova Scotia (1906),
Local Council of Women of Halifax,
Nova Scotia|right
Playgrounds in North America Over the course of the 20th century, the street increasingly lost its role as the default
public space for children's play. It was planned for motor-car use, with momentum building to remove children from the new dangers and confine them to segregated areas to play. Organisations such as the
National Highway Protective Society highlighted the number of deaths caused by automobiles. They urged the creation of playgrounds, aiming to free streets for vehicles rather than children's play. The
Outdoor Recreation League provided funds to erect playgrounds on parkland, especially following the 1901 publication of a report on numbers of children being run down by cars in New York City. street, 1909 In tandem with the new concern about the danger of roads, educational theories of play, including those of
Herbert Spencer and
John Dewey, inspired the emergence of the reformist playground movement, which argued that playgrounds had educational value, improved attention in class, enhanced physical health, and reduced truancy. Interventionist programs, such as those by the
child savers, sought to move children into controlled areas to limit 'delinquency'. It later became the National Recreation Association and then the
National Recreation and Park Association. Urging the need for playgrounds, former
President Theodore Roosevelt stated in 1907: :
City streets are unsatisfactory playgrounds for children because of the danger, because most good games are against the law, because they are too hot in summer, and because in crowded sections of the city they are apt to be schools of crime. Neither do small back yards nor ornamental grass plots meet the needs of any but the very small children. Older children who play vigorous games must have places set aside especially for them, and, since play is a fundamental need, playgrounds should be provided for every child as much as schools. This means that they must be distributed over the cities in such a way as to be within walking distance of every boy and girl, as most children can not afford to pay carfare.
Playgrounds in the Soviet Union Playgrounds were an integral part of
urban culture in the
USSR. In the 1970s and 1980s, there were playgrounds in almost every park in many Soviet cities. Playground apparatus was reasonably standard across the country; most consisted of metal bars with relatively few wooden parts and were manufactured in state-owned factories. Some of the most common constructions were the
carousel, sphere,
seesaw, rocket, bridge, etc. ==Design==