Cast-iron fire engine, about 1900

Mass-produced toys like these were often sold through mail-order catalogs, or "wish books," during the early 1900s. In 1972 Sears, Roebuck and Company, one of the original mail-order stores, donated more than two thousand antique cast-iron and tin-plate toys to the Smithsonian, which featured them in the 1972 exhibition A Children's World.

See also: Children, Toys

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