Is our destiny in our hands, in God’s hands, or are we merely tossed on the winds of chance?
Those deep questions of causality and chance have long preoccupied philosophers and thinkers, and I was reminded of them a while ago when reading a book about 17th-century Puritan belief. This followed a conversation I had with a researcher at The Strong who was interested in the links between popular understandings of quantum mechanics and thinking about play. “God doesn’t play dice,” […]
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Hunting for Treasure
Who doesn’t love a good treasure hunt?
Whether we’re children or adults, there’s something irresistible about following a trail of clues (a map makes it easier and more fun) to some hidden cache that promises untold riches. Most often treasure hunts live only in the world of fiction—Treasure Island with its memorable characters Long John Silver, Jim Hawkins, Billy Bones, and Captain Flint—set the mold that has been imitated by countless books and movies such as Raiders of the Lost Ark, […]
The Coin-op Industry Legacy of ICE President Ralph Coppola
Have you ever played hockey with miniature stick-wielding players and a thumbnail-sized puck on a three-foot table covered by a plastic dome? If so, you have probably played Innovative Concepts in Entertainment’s (ICE) Chexx (or later Super Chexx) “bubble hockey” arcade games. First released in 1982, the iconic game is, in part, the work of Ralph Coppola (1948–2018), who, along with business partner Jack Willert refined David M. Barcelou’s initial invention and brought it to market. Over the course of […]
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Playing with Words and Images: Animals with Human Characteristics in Children’s Literature
Eva Nwokah, 2019 G. Rollie Adams Research Fellow
Professor, Our Lady of the Lake University, San Antonio, Texas
My current research is focused on how animals in children’s literature are portrayed with human characteristics through what they wear and what they say—in other words, animals that are anthropomorphized. Why do children find that animals speak and behave like humans appealing? This playful aspect of stories encourages children’s imagination, holds their attention with silly images, and has been used by authors […]
My Week with Brian: A Conversation with the Collected Works of Brian Sutton-Smith
Alec S. Hurley, 2018 Strong Research Fellow
PhD Student, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX
Despite growing up in Rochester and routinely passing The Strong museum en route to the family business on Oregon Street, I failed to take advantage of the museum’s wonderful exhibits and its abundant collections until late June of 2018. Then, over the course of five days leading up to the July 4th holiday, I was fortunate enough to take a break from my doctoral […]
I Hope This Blog Bores You
“Only boring people get bored.”
This was my mother’s retort every time I told her I was bored. Like, so bored. Like “roll your eyes and sigh and flop down on your bed in exasperation” bored. When toys, TV, and friends fail you, it feels like the end of the world. Most of us have not experienced that uncomfortable feeling of boredom in our adult lives very often. There has always been something to do, something new to see (even if […]
Otherwise “Parkerized”: Oral Histories from Parker Brothers
Parker Brothers, founded in Salem, Massachusetts in 1883, published more than 1,800 games during its existence. To this day, many of their products—such as Monopoly, Clue, Risk, Sorry!, and Ouija—probably still live on shelves or in closets around your home. Parker Brothers remained a family-owned company until 1968, when it was purchased by General Mills. By 1985, General Mills merged their Parker Brothers division with another subsidiary, Kenner, to create Kenner Parker Toys.
In 1986, Professor John J. Fox […]
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Preserving the LGBTQ Game Archive at The Strong
Adrienne Shaw, Director, Cultural Analytics Certificate
Associate Professor, Department of Media Studies and Production
Lew Klein College of Media and Communication Graduate Faculty
Temple University
This fall I donated three digital collections to The Strong museum: the LGBTQ Video Game Archive Source Files, the Rainbow Arcade Collection, and the Joshua D. Savage Digital Game Documents Archive. These are part of my ongoing project documenting the history of LGBTQ content in (primarily) digital games. By donating these files, I hope to encourage future researchers to […]
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Digital Resources from The Strong’s Women in Games Initiative
Nolan Bushnell, Shigeru Miyamoto, Ralph Baer, Jordan Mechner, Will Wright, Hideo Kojima, John Romero. These are some of the most recognizable names in the history of video games. They’re also—well, noticeably, all men. Yet, there are obviously plenty of women who have made a huge impact on the games industry—and one of our most recent projects at The Strong seeks to highlight that.
The Women in Games initiative at The Strong began in 2017 as a key program of the museum’s […]
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