People at Play Archive

Aria S. Halliday, 2019 Strong Research Fellow
Assistant Professor, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH

On my first visit to The Strong National Museum of Play in February 2016, I came as a Strong Research Fellow. Then, I was on a search for any information about Mattel and its history with Black Barbie dolls. I wondered how and why Mattel created Black Barbies, who was involved in their production, and how those designs were then marketed in ads and magazines. Fantastically, I […]

Continue Reading about The History of Black Barbies: From Playthings to Liberation Published on:
October 1, 2020

While processing the Don Daglow papers for The Brian Sutton-Smith Library and Archives of Play, I had the privilege of sitting down with Daglow himself when he was in Rochester for an event here at The Strong. Though our time together was short, the stories he told me made a big impression. I think it’s important to document these details that provide so much context for the materials we have in our archive and I’m happy to share these fun […]

Continue Reading about Stories from the Stacks: What You Don’t Know about Stormfront Studios Published on:
September 17, 2020

In 1959, Roller Derby Skate Company released its Roller Derby Skateboard, the first mass-produced skateboard to hit the marketplace. Skateboarders found it easy to recreate the design at home—they used cut-out sheets of plywood and attached repurposed wheels. Hermosa, California saw the first skateboarding contest in 1963 and the sport quickly emerged as a popular activity. Stories of the origins of skateboarding often center around teenage boys in Southern California, while many of the female pioneers are overlooked. […]

Continue Reading about Skater Girls: A Brief History of Female Skateboarders Published on:
September 10, 2020

1989 was the year of the Basel Convention, officially named the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal. An international treaty designed to reduce the movements of hazardous waste between nations, it is meant to prevent transfer of hazardous waste from developed to less developed countries. It does not address radioactive waste. As of 2020, the United States signed, but never ratified the treaty. A 1989 board game, NIMBY “The Game of Toxic Waste,” was custom […]

Continue Reading about Toxic Times: The NIMBY Satirical Board Game Published on:
September 3, 2020

For most of human existence our ability to play together has been circumscribed by our physical connection with others in our immediate vicinity, a radiating circle of family, friends, and neighbors, spiced with an occasional get together with more distant associates. As I write this blog, we are in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic that has mandated new social distancing rules greatly limiting our ability to gather with others. And yet the play must go on. Fortunately for us, […]

Continue Reading about A Brief History of Online Games Published on:
August 27, 2020

The Strong recently released an online exhibit on the early history of Monopoly, and it details the complex origins of one of the world’s most iconic games. What started as The Landlord’s Game, patented by Elizabeth Magie in 1904, eventually became a game called Monopoly that Charles Darrow sold to Parker Brothers in 1935. A lot happened in between those dates, including other versions of the game showing up in homes and stores courtesy of other alleged or unknown inventors. […]

Continue Reading about A Monopoly on Monopoly: Parker Brothers’ Pursuit of a Game to Call Their Own Published on:
August 20, 2020

For as long as I can remember, I have been fascinated by buttons. Often small and unassuming, these objects may blend into their surroundings and often go largely unnoticed. And yet they serve a critical purpose to hold things together or keep things in place. It may be a stretch, but I tend to think my love of buttons may be a character trait I inherited—genetically or otherwise—from my grandmother. Born and raised in Massachusetts, she had the […]

Continue Reading about Cute as Button Published on:
August 13, 2020

What sort of party games stick in your memory? No, not the ones from your teen years which involved getting your first kiss. I’m thinking of the classic party games for children’s birthday parties. And one of the top party games for that demographic—at least in my childhood—would have to be Pin the Tail on the Donkey. The earliest donkey pinning games in The Strong museum’s collection come from the 1890s, which aligns with accounts from the internet (because you […]

Continue Reading about Pin the What?! Published on:
August 6, 2020

How do you preserve the history of a community? What even makes up a community? How can you store something so abstract, intimate, and interpersonal in files and text? These are the questions I was asking last summer at The Strong. My goal as an intern at the International Center for the History of Electronic Games (ICHEG) was to curate and archive the history of video game speedrunning—the act of beating video games as rapidly as possible by any means […]

Continue Reading about Saving Speedrunning and Digital Communities Published on:
July 30, 2020