What is it about light that makes it so appealing as an element of play? One of my recent blogs focused upon glow-in-the-dark toys that use phosphors and a form of light emission known as photoluminescence to provide a familiar greenish glow. I also described chemiluminescence, a form of light emission dependent upon a chemical reaction. Glow sticks, for example, use this form of illumination. However, Lite-Brite, a toy first produced by Hasbro in 1967, applied an entirely different approach […]

Continue Reading about Art and Creativity with Lite-Brite Published on:
August 31, 2015

I’m a huge fan of novelty items. Currently, my office is adorned with miniature rubber ducks, librarian action figures, small stuffed animals, and other cute-funny-quirky trinkets. These make great conversation pieces and delight others, as well as amuse me.
I’ve found that “novelty” is often used as a catch-all term for miscellaneous items that don’t fit into traditional categories of toys, games, and dolls. For example, practical jokes, magic tricks, souvenirs, and licensed products are considered novelty items. Some manufacturers, such […]

Continue Reading about Novelty Items: Amusements and More! Published on:
May 19, 2015

As a kid in the late 1970s and early 80s, glow-in-the-dark toys fascinated me. During the summer months, my friends and I would play outdoors as much as we could. Even after the sun went down, we tried to cling to every moment we had to play. Toys that “lit up” in the dark furthered our cause and glow-in-the-dark Frisbees became especially important to us during the evening hours. In the colder and darker months, we would head over to […]

Continue Reading about Glow-in-the-Dark Toys Published on:
February 19, 2015

The beloved sock monkey is easily recognizable, cute, silly, and soft, but where did it originate? According to Bonnie Krauss Connelly’s book, Everything’s Coming up Sock Monkeys!: Art, History and Business of the American Sock Monkey, the classic toy’s beginnings can be traced back to Rockford, Illinois, where Swedish immigrant John Nelson settled in 1852. By 1872, Nelson and his business partner, William Worth Burson, developed an automatic knitting machine that could close the heel and toe of a sock, […]

Continue Reading about Monkeying around with Sock Monkeys Published on:
December 5, 2014

As a child who preferred playing outside with sticks and leaves, only a handful of dolls ever really captured my attention. In fact, I only recall true fondness for four dolls: Baby Tenderlove, Raggedy Ann, Darci cover girl, and my Cabbage Patch Kid—Kendall Walter Winner.
In 1983, at the age of 13, I wasn’t interested in Kendall as “just a doll,” I was more fascinated by the fact that he was “one-of-a-kind.” At the time I didn’t understand the mathematical algorithms […]

Continue Reading about Cabbage Patch Kids: A 1983 Phenomenon Published on:
October 20, 2014

It’s time to play the music
It’s time to light the lights
It’s time to meet the Muppets on the Muppet Show tonight
It’s time to put on makeup
It’s time to dress up right
It’s time to raise the curtain on the Muppet Show tonight
Why do we always come here?
I guess we’ll never know
It’s like a kind of torture
To have to watch the show
And now let’s get things started
Why don’t you get things started?
It’s time to get things started
On the most sensational, inspirational, celebrational, […]

Continue Reading about Muppets Among Us Published on:
July 7, 2014

Some of my fondest childhood memories date back to the 1970s and 80s when my grandparents would take my sister and me to Friday night bingo at the local fire hall. The moment we stepped into the building, we were enveloped by the sights, sounds, and aromas of bingo. Hot dogs, popcorn, and refreshments were served and lines formed to purchase the requisite bingo cards. Often we sat with my grandparents’ “bingo buddies” at long tables lined with metal folding […]

Continue Reading about Bingo! Published on:
April 21, 2014

With more than 4,000 examples of trading cards in its collections, The Strong has documented the form’s evolution over more than a century and currently shows off more than 800 examples as part of the museum’s Online Collections. From cigarette cards from the 1890s that feature actresses of the day to Star Wars collecting cards from the 1990s, there’s a lot more to discover than just baseball players and their statistics.
I completely understand the museum’s collecting motivation since trading cards […]

Continue Reading about Trading Cards: Beyond Baseball Published on:
September 16, 2013

Life at The Strong provides me with access to wonderful historical resources. As cataloger for the Brian Sutton-Smith Library and Archives of Play, I typically deal with toy trade catalogs that date from the 1960s through the 1990s. Recently, however, I’ve dealt with some older catalogs from the 1930s through the 1950s. As I worked with a 1942 pamphlet from Holgate Brothers Company, a small slip of paper tucked in it caught my attention. It was a notice from the […]

Continue Reading about The Home Front: Toy Production during World War II Published on:
June 11, 2013