ABSTRACT
Chapter 2 analyzes the WPA nursery school program’s material culture. It moves beyond the thinking of leaders to focus on actual classroom practice. Toys, statistical data, photos, and archival film footage give important glimpses into the lives of children who were too young to leave records of their own. The program aimed at enabling young children to flourish in the industrialized and urban world of the Great Depression, embracing modernism in this quest. Sympathy for modern architectural forms, the modern mother working outside the home, and modern technology provided a framework for understanding the WPA’s own research conclusions: young children learn best when they play with peers in large open spaces. Emphasizing that program leaders designed a curriculum that incorporated cutting-edge ideas in child development, the chapter explores how leaders articulated the program’s primary purpose—children’s healthy development—and investigates how the schools promoted young children’s physical as well as their emotional well-being.
