Robert Goldberg
Ph.D. Candidate
grobert@sas.upenn.edu
Education
B.A. in History, Vassar College (2001); M.A., University of Pennsylvania
Research Interests
History of Childhood and the Family; Popular Culture; Liberalism and the Left; Gender and Race in Consumer Culture; 20th-century Social Criticism; Culture and the Law; Expert Knowledge and Social Policy.
Fields
History since 1600; U.S. Politics and Policy since 1865; Cultural Theory and History
Dissertation Committee
Proposed Dissertation
Progress and Play: Toys, Politics, and the Battle for Childhood in the U.S., 1950-80
Personal Statement
My main research and teaching interests are in business and consumer culture; liberalism and the left since the 1930s; material culture and social class; and the politics of childhood and family life. My dissertation project traces the shifting commercial and cultural status of children's toys in the 1960s and 70s, looking at how different groups, from feminists and black nationalists to toy makers, struggled over the value and meaning of toys in pursuit of their own cultural and political agendas.
