Canadian Children's Museum

The Canadian Children's Museum has a permanent collection of 10,000 artifacts, props and hands-on items, for use in its exhibitions and programmes. In addition, it has access to the world-class collections of the Canadian Museum of Civilization. A distinctive approach within the Children's Museum is the juxtapositioning of display artifacts within a "hands-on" environment. This approach has resulted in collections being categorized as either Permanent Collections or Interpretive Collection, depending on the function for which they were acquired.

The Permanent Collection focuses on documenting the activities of children throughout the world, by collecting contemporary and historical elements of children's material culture, including toys, games, clothing, art, photographs, etc. These artifacts are treated according to commonly accepted museum practices and standards as concerns environmental conditions, security and handling.

The Children's Museum's Interpretive Collection comprises a collection of objects categorized as either "Hands-On" or "Props". Hands-on objects form the largest category of the collections and are an integral part of the Children's Museum's philosophy of learning by doing. The collection consists of replaceable cultural objects, replicas, reproductions, and duplicates of other objects in the collections.

The Prop collection comprises a variety of objects which support or enhance specific exhibitions and/or programmes, similar in nature to theatrical props. Perhaps the best known prop in the Children's Museum collection is a full size, elaborately decorated bus from Pakistan.

See a selection of artifacts from the collection.

Featured Artifact:
The Forster dollhouse

The Forster dollhouse, with its approximately 900 furnishings and miniatures, some of which date back to the 1830s, was handed down through several generations of the Forster family before finding a permanent home in the museum's collections.

William and Catharine Forster and their children, Julian, Alice, Marie and Mabel, immigrated to Canada in 1868 and settled in Hamilton, Ontario. Among the possessions brought with them on a rigorous voyage was a small collection of miniatures from a dollhouse left behind in Dublin, Ireland.

For many years the miniatures were housed in a drawing-room cupboard and brought out only on special occasions. In 1921 a Mr. Craddock of Hamilton was commissioned to build a dollhouse to keep the collection. The dollhouse is a simple version of Queen Mary's childhood dollhouse. Mr. Kermath, a talented house painter and interior decorator, created the imitation brick exterior. A small fingerprint on the sunburst, painted on the gable, was left by seven-year-old Mabel Malley (the last owner of the house) in her excitement to see whether the paint was dry.

Over the next forty years the dollhouse underwent a number of modifications and improvements.

In 1978 extensive renovations were undertaken. The house was completely electrified; new windows and doors were installed. Silk panels decorated the dining-room and a door to the bedrooms was placed in the third-floor corridor for use by the "servants and children." Arthur Russell of Hudson, Quebec, made the parquet flooring for the dining-room, and the corridors on the first and second levels. Brick flooring was installed in the kitchen. Mr. Russell also created a chess set, which rests on an inlaid table in the drawing-room, as well as a tool-shed and folding garden stand.

The tradition of furnishing the house with only fine handmade artifacts was carried down from one generation to another, each adding their own personalized articles. After six generations of loving care and attention, the house finally stands complete, a history of a family in miniature, there for us to admire, wonder at and enjoy.

Explore the dollhouse