Year: 2004
Type: article
Abstract: In 1941 the Vichy government commissioned Jeu de l'Empire Français, a double-sided, brightly colored board game for children, each side with a slightly different ''course de l'Empire français,'' played on a lavishly illustrated world map (fig.1).The rules stated that ''the Marshal offers a voyage around the world to two French youths, passing through the colonies of the empire and using French maritime and aviation lines.''The players left from Marseille in a race across the empire.The object was to reach the metropole first after completing a ''tour du monde'' that was also a ''course de l'empire.''How fortunate the player whose token landed on square number 72, adorned with a photo of Pétain.For on this space ''la Francisque et le Maréchal vont faire au voyageur un bond gigantesque, qui l'amène directement au but''square number 84, Le Havre, and victory.Similar colonial games were produced in France from the late nineteenth century on: embossed, cut-out paper soldiers-''nos soldats en relief, les goumiers marocains''-toys with movable parts, and diverse game boards.All celebrated conquests of foreign lands in the form of mass-produced playthings for French children, whether at home or abroad.Intertwined with the imperial messages was a blatant commercialism, since the toys often contained advertisements for foods, or even alcoholic beverages.Also at work was spiritual advertising to encourage young men and women to join religious orders and the faithful to make pious donations.The game Le Tipoye du Gabon, printed in 1925, shows a nun on Alice L. Conklin is associate professor of history at the University of Rochester.She is author of A Mission to Civilize: The Republican Idea of Empire in France and West Africa, 1895-1914 (Stanford, CA, 1997) and is currently at work on a history of the Musée de l'Homme in Paris from 1920 to 1945.Julia Clancy-Smith is associate professor of history
Source: French Historical Studies
Authors: Alice L. Conklin, Julia Clancy-Smith
Institution: University of Rochester
Language: English
Subfield: Anthropology
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2023853631