Following up yesterday’s Preservation Photos #25 post, which featured the Giant Stride, here’s a glance at other unique playground equipment from the early 20th century. Of course there are many sources with great photographs and information, so consider this a sampling.
First, a search through the Library of Congress digital records always provides good entertainment:
Another Giant Stride (or is it a may pole?) - at a playground in New York City, ca. 1910-1915. Source: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division (click).
Merry-go-round, ca. 1918-1920. Source: Library of Congress Prints & Photographs (click).
A playground apparatus that reminds me of a merry-go-round and a giant stride combined. Source: Library of Congress (click).
A children's city playground. Source: Library of Congress Prints & Photographs (click).
Seesaw, 1902, in Chicago, IL. Source: American Memory, LOC (click).
With the digital world taking over, Flickr is a wonderful resource as well. People share their own images as well as scanning in magazines, advertisements, etc. By searching for “playground” in the uploads or the “playground” groups, you will find some awesome images. Most of it will be mid 20th century, not ca. 1910 or 1920, but it’s fascinating in a different way. Check out the sets by Nels_P_Olsen on Flickr for images of vintage defunct and surviving playgrounds.
Part of the 1975 Miracle Equipment Company playground catalog. Click and scan through the other pages. Source: Nels_P_Olsen.
More from the Miracle Playground Equipment catalog. I include this one for my sisters and our friends at Norwood Elementary: that thing we always called the spider web -- apparently it's a geodesic dome (note bottom). Source: Nels_P_Olsen, flickr (click).
For more, try the “old playground furniture” group. See also this August 26, 2009 “Playgrounds” post from PiP.
How’s that, Erin? Enough to hold you over? I’ll post more in the future. When you’re out exploring, be sure to let me know of any great old playgrounds! Let’s go build a giant stride in the backyard for now.
Ha yess! All of those were awesome! I’ll definitely look out for crazy playground equipment on my adventures, but for now I’m totally up for building our own Giant Stride…or Miracle Sputnik
I realize the article about ‘giant stride’ playground equipment is almost two years old. However, I just found it for the first time and wanted to tell you that, when I was just starting school about 1937, we had a giant stride in the school yard. This was in Perrin, Jack County, Texas. We would get the giant stride turning as fast as we could and then take ‘giant leaps’ through lthe air. It seemed like we were flying.
Thanks for sharing, Shirley. I’m always happy to hear memories and dates. Sounds like fun!
Wonderful post. My neighbor actually somehow saved one of these old merry-go-rounds that they were removing from a park or playground and now has it at his house for his kids. Even us adults love playing on it. Sure these old school playground pieces could have been dangerous, but we knew how to have fun!
I love merry-go-rounds, too!
I went to elementary school in Adna, Washington. We had a ‘Giant Stride’ on our playground, though as I recall, we called it “Giant Strikes” – but Giant Stride makes more sense. I can remember everyone but one standing close to the post with their handles, and one person wrapping their chain over the top of everyone elses. Then when we would start running around in a circle, the ‘rider’ would fly out over top of everyone else. This would have been 1956 to 1961 or so. It was like a flying trapeze!
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