We know that girls in all times have imitated mothers when playing and that many girls love to play in tranquillity with dolls. Back in time when most girls from well-to-do families where predestinated for an adult life as good mothers and representative housewifes with domestic servants many playhouses more or less filled a role as an educational instrument. The parents equipped the playhouses with all kinds of childsized households items and the girls played and had fun in their minihouses without really noticing that they also learned for the future.

At the Leksands Kulturhus we have put the girls and their playhouses in focus. Objects shown at the exhibition are borrowed from private persons in and around Leksand, the Museum of Norrkoping and Husgeradskammaren at the Royal Palace in Stockholm. Photos and short parts from the letters sent to the Playhouse Memory Archive were framed and put on the walls to widen the aspects and show different kinds of playhouses in varying social environments.

Back in the old days many playhouses were so well equipped that they almost looked like copies of real homes. In some playhouses you could find not only an almost complete kitchen but also a well furnitured livingroom sometimes with a real fire place to keep out the chilliness of autumns and springs. Now and then stories in the archive tell about Christmas traditions with families gathering in playhouses lit up by candles and fireplaces in snowy winter times.

However most playhouses in Sweden are built with thin walls and therefore the playhouse season generally begins with a spring cleaning in May. Thereafter blossom the playhouses during the summer months of play, joy and fun and when the temperature drops in the autumn they are locked up and closed for the winter waiting for the next playhouse season to come.

The stand to the left is an "open" playhouse painted in yellow with beautiful white decorations to hold up the roof. The table setting illustrate the photo on the wall where the princesses Marta, Margareta and Astrid are having a birthday party in their playhouse in the park of the family summer estate Fridhem, Ostergotland in 1910. To the right a red painted "open" playhouse stand shows kitchen equipments from a playhouse built in the late nineteen-twenties near Leksand, Dalarna.

Below to the left you will see some white furniture from the yellow stand above made by a carpenter for a playhouse in a park on a mansion in the providence of Ostergotland in the late nineteen-tenth. The porcelains in the blue show-case come from a playhouse built in 1879 in the garden of a grand summer villa by the water in the archipelago outside Stockholm. The plates on the right tablecloth are about 4 - 4,5 inches in diameter. The furniture in the picture third in line are also made by hand. A father made them to the playhouse of his three daughters in the late twenties. If you look close enough you will see that the sofa is made from an old wooden "sugar" box. All the father needed to do was to put on a wooden back and the sofa was ready for use. To the right you see some kitchen utensiliers. Notice the red washtub on the top of the cabinet, the household balance on the shelf and all the other small kitchen items. The last two pictures are close ups from the red painted "open" playhouse stand.

Down to the left (and in the middle) is a show-case with aprons, parts of a coffee-set, forms for sponges-cakes and so on. The items were used in the royal playhouse at Haga in Stockholm when the King of Sweden and his four sisters were children. The pictures on the wall show royal playhouses from Solliden in Oland (1910 and 1951), Sofiero in Skane (1918) and the one at Haga (1940). To the right is a stand with items from the playhouse at Fridhem (the first playhouse was built in 1910). The three princesses had white furniture in their playhouse. On the picture you can see a white flower-table, a set of brooms in a white corner cabinet, a set of rollers hanging on the wall, a white round box with small cake forms, a couple of milk cans, a pot for preserverings of fruits in glass jars, a couple of cook-books and so on.

Most playhouses are surrounded by some sort of a garden. In early times the playhouses of the well-to-do often were placed in the middle of a kitchen garden with all kinds of vegetables and fruits needed in the playhouse kitchen. The idea of having allotments gardens were popular in Sweden in the beginning of this century. That is probably one of the reasons why most of the playhouse owners in all layer of society decorated the surroundings of their family playhouse with flowers, strawberries and other wholesome berries and fruits. This tradition flourish to some extent also today and it is most common to have at least a few flowers at the house corner and a small Swedish flag on the rooftop. The playhouse tradition lives on and the exhibition gave the visitors a glance into the playhouse world of both princesses and more common girls.

In the pictures above you will see some handmade white garden furniture from the old days. The very small newly built wooden playhouse on the pictures comes from the providence of Dalarna. The size is roughly 32 x 32 inches and the height is slightly more.

Above you can see some of the frames with pictures and texts from the Playhouse Memory Archive and below you find pictures from the most costly and elegant playhouse I so far have found. It is a playhouse in two levels from the providence of Sormland. Downstairs there is a kitchen with an iron stove and a livingroom with a fire-place. Upstairs there is a bedroom with two beds and a study with a writing-table. All furniture is made by the local carpenters on the mansion. A few years back all the childsized house and furniture were redone and today the old playhouse from the nineteen-tenth is a good example of a gift from a rich father to his two bellowed daughters in the beginning of our century.