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By: Kristin Fitzsimmons, 2025 Valentine-Cosman Research Fellow at The Strong National Museum of Play
In her 2011 book Alone Together, Sherry Turkle wrote that “in the half-light of virtual community, we may feel utterly alone. As we distribute ourselves, we may abandon ourselves.” Turkle’s concern 14 years ago that anthropomorphized machines and digital networks might counterintuitively alienate us from each other now seems almost quaint post-Covid 19 as many of us grapple with the impact of generative AI. I came to […]

Continue Reading about Game Changers: Women Who Built Community Through Play Published on:
October 10, 2025

Have you ever played The Game of Travel? I’m willing to bet you haven’t. It was published in 1894 by Parker Brothers, perhaps most famous for manufacturing Monopoly. How about Hendrik Van Loon’s Wide World Game? That Parkers Brothers game is from 1933. For 2025’s International Day of Play, I teamed up with members of our collections and public programs teams to offer guests the opportunity to play these rare games. Let’s talk about why I chose these games and […]

Continue Reading about Recreating 100-Year-Old Games for International Day of Play Published on:
October 3, 2025

By Adam Nedeff, researcher for the National Archives of Game Show History, and Howard Blumenthal, co-founder of the National Archives of Game Show History
On September 16, film lovers mourned the loss Robert Redford, star of The Sting, Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid, All the President’s Men, and many other popular movies. For game show fans, the name Robert Redford is connected with one film where he never stepped in front of the camera: he directed 1994’s Quiz Show, […]

Continue Reading about Robert Redford…and Quiz Show Published on:
September 29, 2025

Once adult playthings, dollhouses originally showcased finely crafted furnishings made of exotic materials and served as symbols of wealth. But miniatures fascinated children as much as adults, and toymakers began producing variations of these houses for kids to enjoy. And dollhouses remain a favorite plaything today, as well as an inductee to the National Toy Hall of Fame.
Margaret Woodbury Strong, the museum’s founder, was an avid collector of dollhouses. A ticket from 1958 invited guests to the “First Public Showing […]

Continue Reading about Dollhouses Unveiled: An Exhibit Celebrating Dollhouses and Miniatures Published on:
September 28, 2025

I arrived at The Strong National Museum of Play hoping to uncover more about the history of music in early video games—especially those released before 1985, the year the Nintendo Entertainment System launched in North America. I was particularly interested in games created by Atari in the 1970s and early ’80s. Many accounts of video game music history follow a familiar narrative: sound moves from silence to fully integrated musical scores, evolving in lockstep with technological advances. It’s an appealing […]

Continue Reading about Rethinking the Sound of Early Video Games Published on:
September 21, 2025

It’s 2025. Are you reading this on your smartphone or computer? It’s apparent that modern society is attached to its digital devices. When it comes to memories and our social media accounts, we all experience the same cycle. We take a photo with our phone. The photo gets added to the Photos app, buried among thousands of previously snapped images. It’s new today, but within a week, this image will be buried by tens—possibly hundreds—of newer ones. We upload it […]

Continue Reading about Committed to Memory: The Glynn Scrapbook, Part 1 Published on:
September 12, 2025

By Dovi Kutoff, Guest Blogger
As CEO of OrangeOnions, I’ve built my career as part of a team designing toys that bring comfort, creativity, and connection across generations. But long before patents, plush characters, and partnerships, it all began with one beloved object: My blankie.
For nearly 50 years, my blankie traveled with me—from childhood bedrooms to red-eye flights, through family milestones and global meetings. It wasn’t just my comfort—it was my cape, my tent, my magic carpet. And recently, I made […]

Continue Reading about Why I Donated My Blankie to The Strong Museum of Play: From a Childhood Cape to a Legacy of Imagination Published on:
September 5, 2025

By Adam Nedeff, researcher for the National Archives of Game Show History
It’s back-to-school time, so this is a reminder to the parents and guardians out there to make sure your students are all stocked up on class supplies—pencils, notebooks, folders, buzzers, and bells. Wait, buzzers and bells?
That’s right. Game shows have gone back to school. In 2024, National Archives of Game Show History co-founder Bob Boden and longtime Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! executive producer Harry Friedman established a curriculum […]

Continue Reading about Next Game Show Creators Published on:
August 28, 2025

Opening the 1989 Sears Christmas catalog and perusing the fifteen-odd pages of video game advertisements, filled with pictures of boys and accented with blue, reveals what many women have felt for decades: games just aren’t made for us. Until the 1990s, video games were almost exclusively marketed to boys and men. Women, of course, can and did still play video games; but playing them meant wading through a swamp of sexist portrayals, if we were even lucky enough to encounter […]

Continue Reading about From Girl Talk to Girl Games: The Analog History of Games for Girls Published on:
August 23, 2025