This is absolutely fascinating to me, especially the 'the way we were' written in the top corner. It says so much about nostalgia for and ideas about children's play. In my research on boys in Chicago in early 20thC children played many of these games but play also involved... https://twitter.com/museumofCP/status/1283038879709364232

...much less idyllic activities such as scaring horses with firecrackers, derailing trains, 'loafing', and a lot of sexual activities.

As I write in my manuscript, play without playgrounds was inherently dangerous to children but it was also deadly to adults who tried to use...

...streets alongside playing children. For example, even something seemingly innocuous like snowball fights could be more than a nuisance as children filled their snowballs with stones and bricks and targeted passers-by.

The Chicago Tribune reported on incidents of children’s snowballs breaking adults’ bones, blinding them, and, in one case at least, causing a fatal head wound.

Children in the street caused traffic accidents. Children caused lumber piles to fall and crush people. Children playing with matches in barns and stables caused fires. Children making toboggan slides created icy traps for pedestrians.

Not to mention that children’s dangerous play on the 4th July became so violent that by 1901, thousands were fleeing the city every year, in the words of the Tribune “Leaving the City for the Small Boy to Blow Up if He Can”