Toy Boom: NC Museum of History opens exhibit all about toys this weekend

The NC Museum of History is getting ready to open an exhibit that will be a great conversation starter for grandparents and their grandkids.

Posted 6:29 p.m. Oct 1, 2019 — Updated 9:29 a.m. Oct 2, 2019

Sarah Lindenfeld Hall

, Go Ask Mom editor

RALEIGH, N.C. — The NC Museum of History is getting ready to open an exhibit that will be a great conversation starter for grandparents and their grandkids.

Toy Boom will open Oct. 4 and feature toys from the 1950s and 1960s. The exhibit will focus on the playthings of the Baby Boomer generation and how they reflected the energy and prosperity of the era, but also its uncertainties. Vintage playthings on display will range from an Easy Bake Oven to Rock ’Em, Sock ’Em Robots, according to a press release.

“The baby-boomer years were a time of more in America … including more toys,” said Katie Edwards, the museum's curator of popular culture, in the release. “We created this exhibit to help North Carolinians reflect on their paths from childhood to adulthood, including the toys that paved the way.”

Toy Boom! is curated into unique environments, including TV westerns, as well as space age, zany, and creative toys. There will be lots of photo opportunities and hands-on interactive activities, according to the release.

Those activities include a larger-than-life Twister board, a giant Lite-Brite wall, an Etch A Sketch station, working Hot Wheels racing tracks (complete with inversion loops), a “Name that Tune” with TV Westerns game, and a digital Christmas catalog stations where visitors can digitally flip through the pages to look at vintage toys.

The exhibit will run through January 3, 2021 at the downtown Raleigh museum. Admission will be free.

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