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 […]
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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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Extra, Extra: Read All About Newspapers and Play
For more than a century, the newspaper trade has had to determine creative ways to prevent a decrease in circulation and to find new subscribers. In the late 1800s, the Sunday edition of newspapers began to carry art supplements, which included parlor prints and toys for kids to cut out and assemble. Art supplements proved an innovative way to build an audience—each week parents read about the next must-have paper toys in the following week’s newspaper.
Some companies used […]
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The History of Black Barbies: From Playthings to Liberation
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 […]
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Life in Plastic: It’s Not Just Barbie
Like many Americans, I have been home with my children 24/7 for nearly six weeks. The experience has become an independent study for my job as a curator responsible for toys and dolls. I see how my kids interact with their toys and dolls and reflect on what these playthings teach my children. Adding to the mix, my mom has also started to drop off boxes of my childhood playthings, including a bin of Barbie dolls.
Barbie has generated criticism since […]
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Cooking for Fun
When I left home for graduate school and my first apartment, I could barely boil water. But I rapidly recognized that I couldn’t afford to go out to eat very often and I didn’t want to subsist on products from the supermarket’s freezer case. My solution? Learn to cook! Living alone let me experiment and hone my kitchen skills without anyone else around to say, “I thought we were going to eat before 8 p.m.” or “Did you really mean […]
Ralph Baer—Toy Inventor
Ralph Baer is perhaps best known as the father of home video games. He patented the idea for playing a video game on a television and then successfully developed the first home video game system, the Magnavox Odyssey, that came out in 1972. And yet Baer’s work on video games was only one small part of a lifetime of inventing. He had worked for decades in the defense industry, ultimately heading a major engineering division of Sanders, a large military […]
Star Wars Day: The Action Figures that Almost Weren’t
Not long ago—1977, to be exact—in our very own galaxy, moviegoers witnessed the birth of a legend. Since its inception, the Star Wars franchise has generated billions of dollars in film, television, and merchandise, and is one of the most iconic titles in entertainment history. But while its popularity is undisputed today, that was not always the case. In fact, it was quite the opposite, which led to what could have easily become one of the biggest faux pas in […]
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Toy Fair 2020: Things That Make You Go Eww
In 2018, the toy industry saw a significant increase in toys related to potty humor. Some critics speculated that this was based on the popularity of the smiling poop emoji on the iPhone, while others associated the trend with the new generation of parents raised on South Park’s Mr. Hankey, The Simpsons, and Family Guy. Lawrence Cohen, Ph.D., author of Playful Parenting, noted that the sensory experience of using the bathroom combined with the “hush-hush privacy and secrecy” creates the […]
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