Degree Programs

Ph.D.  Art and Archaeology, Princeton University
M.A.  Princeton University
B.A.  Smith College

My research explores the history of modern European and American architecture, design, and decorative arts, as well as world’s fairs, and the material culture of childhood. My most recent book Object Lessons: Creativity and the Material Culture of Postwar American Childhood will appear in 2013. Historicizing the idea of childhood creativity, I show how material goods such as toys, playrooms, playgrounds, books, schools, and even museums produced for the American baby boom participated actively in forming the notion of the creative child after World War II. My first book was on architecture and design in turn-of-the-century Belgium, Art Nouveau and the Social Vision of Modern Living: Belgian Artists in a European Context (2001). I have received grants from the Canadian Centre for Architecture, the American Association of University Women, the Smithsonian Institution, the Spencer Foundation, the Belgian-American Foundation, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

Selected Recent Publications:

• “Good Toys,” “Back to School,” “The Modern Playroom,” “Disneyland,” and “McDonald’s” in The Century of the Child: Growing by Design 1900-2000, edited by Juliet Kinchin (New York: The Museum of Modern Art (forthcoming 2012).
• “’To See is to Know’: Visuality and the International Expositions,” in A History of Visual Culture: Western Civilization from the 18^th to the 21^st Century, edited by Jane Kromm & Susan Bakewell (London: Berg, 2010).
•  “The Heathcote School: An Object Lesson,” The Senses and Society 4, no. 3 (2009): 347-352.
• “Building for Learning in Postwar American Elementary Schools,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 67, no. 4 (2008): 562-591.
• “Building Imagination in Postwar American Children’s Rooms,” Studies in the Decorative Arts (issues in interior design history edited by Pat Kirkham, Penny Sparke, and Jeremy Aynsley) XVI, no. 1 (2008-09): 126-142.
•  “Creative Playthings: Educational Toys and Postwar American Culture,” Winterthur Portfolio 39, nos. 2/3 (2004): 129-156. [Appeared Summer 2005]

Read an interview with Professor Ogata.