Papers by Paulina Retamales
This study examines the Edmonton Gyro Club and how it structured play for children in urban playg... more This study examines the Edmonton Gyro Club and how it structured play for children in urban playgrounds from 1921 to 1944. The first supervised playgrounds in Edmonton, Alberta, were constructed by a local Gyro Club formed in 1921. This men’s civic group was linked with North American Gyro Clubs that originated in Cleveland. Edmonton’s case is re-examined to challenge McFarland’s earlier interpretation that Gyros slowed playground development advocated by women’s groups.
Middle-class Gyro members produced play as a medium of community building in a growing prairie city. It attempted to foster better citizenship through the lives of children, bringing the outdoor play movement into child saving and civic reform. Like many urban reformers, the Edmonton Gyro Club attempted to enhance civic life; unlike most cities, it directly operated Edmonton playgrounds and summer children’s programs for twenty-two years, and positioned men collaboratively to nurture childcare through play. The club aimed to raise children as young citizens in a distinctive urban play culture, which drove precedents for postwar municipal programs. A creative Gyro playground culture based on holistic physical and cultural literacy emerged in Edmonton implemented by university students, educators, and neighbours. Bourdieu’s theories are engaged to analyze Gyro playgrounds as early social and cultural capital investment. Playgrounds operated within networks of family and community that constituted ‘play’ as a form of social practices and connectedness. Edmonton’s Gyro Club men reproduced middle-class Anglo-Canadian values through social relations, but also generated play spaces and practices as shared social and cultural capital to achieve their ideal of a better city and contribute to modern social reform through the lives of children. Research is based on archival sources and newspapers.
Keywords: playground, park, Gyro Club, urban reform, children, men, holistic play, physical literacy
This study examines the Edmonton Gyro Club and how it structured play for children in urban playg... more This study examines the Edmonton Gyro Club and how it structured play for children in urban playgrounds from 1921 to 1944. The first supervised playgrounds in Edmonton, Alberta, were constructed by a local Gyro Club formed in 1921. This men’s civic group was linked with North American Gyro Clubs that originated in Cleveland. Edmonton’s case is re-examined to challenge McFarland’s earlier interpretation that Gyros slowed playground development advocated by women’s groups.
Middle-class Gyro members produced play as a medium of community building in a growing prairie city. It attempted to foster better citizenship through the lives of children, bringing the outdoor play movement into child saving and civic reform. Like many urban reformers, the Edmonton Gyro Club attempted to enhance civic life; unlike most cities, it directly operated Edmonton playgrounds and summer children’s programs for twenty-two years, and positioned men collaboratively to nurture childcare through play. The club aimed to raise children as young citizens in a distinctive urban play culture, which drove precedents for postwar municipal programs. A creative Gyro playground culture based on holistic physical and cultural literacy emerged in Edmonton implemented by university students, educators, and neighbours. Bourdieu’s theories are engaged to analyze Gyro playgrounds as early social and cultural capital investment. Playgrounds operated within networks of family and community that constituted ‘play’ as a form of social practices and connectedness. Edmonton’s Gyro Club men reproduced middle-class Anglo-Canadian values through social relations, but also generated play spaces and practices as shared social and cultural capital to achieve their ideal of a better city and contribute to modern social reform through the lives of children. Research is based on archival sources and newspapers.
Keywords: playground, park, Gyro Club, urban reform, children, men, holistic play, physical literacy
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Papers by Paulina Retamales
Middle-class Gyro members produced play as a medium of community building in a growing prairie city. It attempted to foster better citizenship through the lives of children, bringing the outdoor play movement into child saving and civic reform. Like many urban reformers, the Edmonton Gyro Club attempted to enhance civic life; unlike most cities, it directly operated Edmonton playgrounds and summer children’s programs for twenty-two years, and positioned men collaboratively to nurture childcare through play. The club aimed to raise children as young citizens in a distinctive urban play culture, which drove precedents for postwar municipal programs. A creative Gyro playground culture based on holistic physical and cultural literacy emerged in Edmonton implemented by university students, educators, and neighbours. Bourdieu’s theories are engaged to analyze Gyro playgrounds as early social and cultural capital investment. Playgrounds operated within networks of family and community that constituted ‘play’ as a form of social practices and connectedness. Edmonton’s Gyro Club men reproduced middle-class Anglo-Canadian values through social relations, but also generated play spaces and practices as shared social and cultural capital to achieve their ideal of a better city and contribute to modern social reform through the lives of children. Research is based on archival sources and newspapers.
Keywords: playground, park, Gyro Club, urban reform, children, men, holistic play, physical literacy
Middle-class Gyro members produced play as a medium of community building in a growing prairie city. It attempted to foster better citizenship through the lives of children, bringing the outdoor play movement into child saving and civic reform. Like many urban reformers, the Edmonton Gyro Club attempted to enhance civic life; unlike most cities, it directly operated Edmonton playgrounds and summer children’s programs for twenty-two years, and positioned men collaboratively to nurture childcare through play. The club aimed to raise children as young citizens in a distinctive urban play culture, which drove precedents for postwar municipal programs. A creative Gyro playground culture based on holistic physical and cultural literacy emerged in Edmonton implemented by university students, educators, and neighbours. Bourdieu’s theories are engaged to analyze Gyro playgrounds as early social and cultural capital investment. Playgrounds operated within networks of family and community that constituted ‘play’ as a form of social practices and connectedness. Edmonton’s Gyro Club men reproduced middle-class Anglo-Canadian values through social relations, but also generated play spaces and practices as shared social and cultural capital to achieve their ideal of a better city and contribute to modern social reform through the lives of children. Research is based on archival sources and newspapers.
Keywords: playground, park, Gyro Club, urban reform, children, men, holistic play, physical literacy
Middle-class Gyro members produced play as a medium of community building in a growing prairie city. It attempted to foster better citizenship through the lives of children, bringing the outdoor play movement into child saving and civic reform. Like many urban reformers, the Edmonton Gyro Club attempted to enhance civic life; unlike most cities, it directly operated Edmonton playgrounds and summer children’s programs for twenty-two years, and positioned men collaboratively to nurture childcare through play. The club aimed to raise children as young citizens in a distinctive urban play culture, which drove precedents for postwar municipal programs. A creative Gyro playground culture based on holistic physical and cultural literacy emerged in Edmonton implemented by university students, educators, and neighbours. Bourdieu’s theories are engaged to analyze Gyro playgrounds as early social and cultural capital investment. Playgrounds operated within networks of family and community that constituted ‘play’ as a form of social practices and connectedness. Edmonton’s Gyro Club men reproduced middle-class Anglo-Canadian values through social relations, but also generated play spaces and practices as shared social and cultural capital to achieve their ideal of a better city and contribute to modern social reform through the lives of children. Research is based on archival sources and newspapers.
Keywords: playground, park, Gyro Club, urban reform, children, men, holistic play, physical literacy
Middle-class Gyro members produced play as a medium of community building in a growing prairie city. It attempted to foster better citizenship through the lives of children, bringing the outdoor play movement into child saving and civic reform. Like many urban reformers, the Edmonton Gyro Club attempted to enhance civic life; unlike most cities, it directly operated Edmonton playgrounds and summer children’s programs for twenty-two years, and positioned men collaboratively to nurture childcare through play. The club aimed to raise children as young citizens in a distinctive urban play culture, which drove precedents for postwar municipal programs. A creative Gyro playground culture based on holistic physical and cultural literacy emerged in Edmonton implemented by university students, educators, and neighbours. Bourdieu’s theories are engaged to analyze Gyro playgrounds as early social and cultural capital investment. Playgrounds operated within networks of family and community that constituted ‘play’ as a form of social practices and connectedness. Edmonton’s Gyro Club men reproduced middle-class Anglo-Canadian values through social relations, but also generated play spaces and practices as shared social and cultural capital to achieve their ideal of a better city and contribute to modern social reform through the lives of children. Research is based on archival sources and newspapers.
Keywords: playground, park, Gyro Club, urban reform, children, men, holistic play, physical literacy