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Marbles Are Dangerous


Steph

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Just been having fun with the Times archives.

Funny how important marbles were in the 1800's and early 1900's. The Times even imported stories from out of state.

They reported on kids stealing marbles.

On kids being arrested for playing marbles or playing marbles for keeps (in 1909 a judge in Washington declared keeps illegal).

On marbles as gifts. 1884 was the year of the marble. 1885 was the year of the top and marbles "couldn't be given away". But in 1893 a bag of marbles would be welcome, especially if there were several 'reals' in it. Make the bag of duck or coarse linen and embroider the boy's initial on it.

On marbles in a nostalgic way. On marbles in an educational and moralistic way. Rich society women apparently disapproved of marbles in 1909 but they were accused of turning their sons into mollycoddles. Public school boys had more "grit and vigor".

On tournaments.

How Arabian kids played marbles.

On city planning, with parks for kids to play marbles.

Marbles was bigtime.

Oh yes, there was one about collecting marbles -- lol -- this boy had a huge collection of marbles without ever playing a game. He was loaning them and charging interest. Something like giving out 6 marbles and demanding 9 in return.

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