The toy as object of study has interested educators, psychologists, designers, sociologists, philosophers and historians, principally due to the wide diversity of insights that the study of toys provides onto the economics, politics and cultural realities that define the contemporary world. The histories of toys and their use are embedded in the project of modernity originating in the Enlightenment. The current study treats the toy as an artifact, a product of human labor and an object suitable for analysis within the precepts of material culture and design. studies From this premise, a range of data about the toy`s design in Brazil, in its multiple manifestations, have been undertaken, with focus on the following aspects: 1. the emerging notion of childhood in the nineteenth century, and the different conceptions of the importance of the toy for the child; 2. the popular toy tradition in Brazil, demonstrating the relationship between the craft characteristics of toymaking and the socio-economic conditions of the Brazilian childhood; 3. the technological transformations that contributed to the industrialization of the Brazilian toy, with special emphasis on the history of Manufatura de Brinquedos Estrela; 4. the process of producing toys in Brazil, as understood through interviews with toy designers and other professionals. The main goal of this research is to generate a base of knowledge about the process of toy creation in Brazil. The data related to this theme is fragmented across several fields of study, thus the research acquired an archeological character, assembling and organizing fragments and vestiges with methodologies that range from the history of workmanship and technology to the study of popular culture.