Caroline Pratt’s Do-With Toys™ and Unit Blocks

Abstract

This case study sketches the early history of Caroline Pratt’s Do-With Toys and her Unit Blocks. Pratt began manufacturing her Do-With toys in 1908. Since 1909 numerous newspaper and magazine articles paid attention to them. The Do-With toys as well as Pratt's newly developed Unit Blocks were demonstrated by Pratt and Patty Smith Hill at the 1911 Child Welfare Exhibition in New York City and in Chicago, and at the 1911 Exhibition of Christmas Gifts in the Teachers College Educational Museum, Columbia University, New York City, organized by Patty Smith Hill. Pratt did not discard her toys and blocks after she founded Play School (later renamed City and Country School) in September 1913. Furthermore, she developed her Unit Blocks independently from Patty Smith Hill's Floor Blocks; Hill's blocks were only first produced in late 1911. Reaerch shows that necdotes that claim that experimental Hill Floor Blocks inspired Pratt to design blocks herself have no real foundation.Pratt's toys and blocks, in contrast to Hill's Floor Blocks, show a distinct influence by the Arts and Crafts movement (Pratt was Craftsman Member of the Society of Arts and Crafts of Boston, Massachusetts). In December 1919, Pratt was awardedc the prestegious Hubbard Carpenter Award for toys of greatest art and educational value — a prize of US $ 25,00 — at the Art Institute of Chicago for her group of wooden Do-With dolls.

Keywords: Anna Bryan, Josephine Emerson, Helen Marot, Patty Smith Hill, Caroline L. Pratt, Edna Louise Smith, Jessie Stanton. Bureau of Educational Experiments, Do-With ToysTM, Hill Floor Blocks, Open-Air School for Girls and Boys, Play School (City and Country School), Progressive Education, Unit Blocks