Picture being a kid in the 1700s. School and chores are done! Your jungle gym is the nearest tree. Your swimming pool is the local creek. 

Then the Industrial Revolution cranked up (1760 to about 1840). People moved from the country to cities for factory jobs. Bustling American cities often had hundreds of homeless children. Children played in the streets. A New York City law forbade this dangerous habit. Police even dragged kids into court. Where could the children go? 

Others jumped in to help. Americans had heard about play areas for children in Germany called “sand gardens.” People in Boston, Massachusetts, began dumping piles of sand into play yards. 

That was the late 1880s. The play movement was born. 

Jane Addams’ Hull House Playground opened in 1894 in Chicago, Illinois. The place sprawled over most of an acre. It had sand piles, swings, and building blocks for younger children. Older children enjoyed handball and baseball courts. 

The Playground Association of America formed in 1906. Members wanted spaces that had play sections and athletic fields. Does that sound like your local park?

People got more creative in the 1950s. You could clamber on a toy rocket ship, whoosh down tall slides, and crawl through tunnels. The catch? All the equipment was made of metal. That meant there were some sharp edges. And surfaces got really hot in summer’s sunlight. Ouch.

Builders started using plastic and wood equipment with more rounded edges by the 1970s and 1980s. Whew. 

Do you have a safe playground? Thank the people in your community. They were thinking of you when they built it.