Krystal Starke
2021 G. Rollie Adams Research Fellow
PhD Student at The State University of New York at Buffalo
I came to The Strong with an open-ended mission: to soak up everything I could surrounding my research interests in early childhood autism and play as part of my dissertation research. Fortunately, The Strong’s Brian Sutton-Smith Library and Archives of Play is filled with rich secondary materials that provided a lens to understand the primary sources within the museum’s collections in a new way.
I […]
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Demo Day Play?
Recent home repair and renovation has made me wonder: is demolition play? On the surface it may not be terribly playful but, if we use our metaphorical sledgehammers to break through the surface and dig a little deeper, we might think about the concept a bit differently.
Most folks associate the word demolition with destruction and damage. What they may not consider is the enthusiasm and excitement that spectators or participants often experience during the process. For instance, demolition […]
The Life-Changing Magic of Sewing and Barbie
“Barbie quite simply changed my life.”
Many of us can say that, in one way or another, our experiences playing with Barbie had lasting effects on our lives. For me Barbie provided a venue for my daydreaming and storytelling. For others Barbie might have been more of a double-edged sword: inspiration that came exclusively in hourglass measurements. Carol Spencer’s life, however, would not have been the same in any way without Barbie.
Spencer grew up making paper clothes for her paper dolls […]
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The Play of Fortune
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,” […]
Revved Up and Ready to Roll: Manual-Powered Ride-On Toys
Ride-on toys, or kiddie cars, first appeared on the paved sidewalks and driveways of America in the early 20th century. Over the years, ride-ons have included cars, trucks, tractors, grasshoppers, worms, sneakers, you name it. Whatever their era or style, ride-on vehicles provide kids with a sense of independence and adventure, while also cultivating physical and mental skills.
The earliest ride-ons depicted animals such as swans and horses. The examples made around World War I often reflected the patriotism […]
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Charles Harrison: The Black Industrial Designer Who Revamped View-Master
Born in Shreveport, Louisiana in 1931, Charles Harrison spent his childhood playing with model airplanes and Erector sets. His father taught industrial arts and his mother decorated the home with a keen eye for design. Inspired by his parents, Harrison built different structures and mechanisms to make his toys move and lift. In an interview with Smithsonian Magazine, Harrison recalled, “I built a boat once—took it out to the pond, put it in there and it sank with […]
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Let’s Put on a Show!
When I was growing up and my sister and I got together with our favorite cousins, there was hardly anything we liked better than putting on a show for the grown-ups. As I recall, the five of us kids would descend to our basement rec room where we’d cook up a script, cast the parts, devise costumes from the dress-up box, and practice our dramatic extravaganza. Meanwhile, I suspect our parents were upstairs rolling their eyes and bracing […]
Chalking Up a Win
Congratulations to sidewalk chalk for earning a place of honor among the three toys inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame on November 5, 2020. For a plaything that’s been around ever since our early ancestors were drawing on the walls of the caves they called home, that’s proof persistence earning well-deserved acclaim.
But 2020 wasn’t the first year that chalk received recognition as one of the 12 finalists for the Hall of Fame. Back in 2016, chalk’s inclusion on […]
Baby Nancy Inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame
It all began following the 1965 Watts Riots in Los Angeles, California. Louis S. Smith, II and Robert Hall worked with civil rights activists and community members to form Operation Bootstrap, a cooperative that sought to rebuild the community and provide jobs for its residents. Operation Bootstrap’s neighbor, Mattel, was impressed by its success. In 1968, Smith and Hall met with Mattel leadership. The makers of Barbie wanted to support Bootstrap’s initiative and offered to back a toy […]
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