Born in racially segregated South Carolina in 1948, Louvenia (Kitty) Black Perkins grew up playing with white dolls gifted by her mother’s employers. In the 1960s, Black Perkins attended an all-black school, Carver High School, where she excelled in art. Upon graduation, she received the gift of a trip to visit her aunt and uncle in California. There Black Perkins put her name on a wait list for commercial art classes at Los Angeles Trade Technical College and, in the […]
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Transatlantic Play
There are very few global “cartographic events” in human history—feats of transportation that require the immediate making and dispersal of new maps. Columbus’s arrival in the New World was one. The moon landing was another. To this short list we might add Charles Lindbergh’s transatlantic crossing. In 1927, he became the first to fly alone from the continental United States to continental Europe (New York–Paris).
Lindbergh’s various flight exploits are often and understandably overshadowed by his future dabbling with fascism and […]
Pinball History in the Archives
Being on the Collections team at The Strong museum means that there’s never a dull moment. We are continually receiving boxes and boxes (and sometimes pallets) of toy, game, doll, and electronic game-related objects, as well as related ephemera and papers. A unique artifact being cataloged will catch the eye of a colleague, and a discussion of its significance (or a fond trip down memory lane) will ensue. Occasionally, a large collection may take quite some time to fully catalog […]
The Quintuplets Story: From Baby Girls to Baby Dolls
In The Strong museum’s storage, there are five identical baby girl dolls, all dressed alike in pretty pastel colors. Their painted brown hair, curled lashes, and red lips, might make you think they were an average bunch of composition dolls from the early 1900s. The first time I laid eyes on them, however, I knew exactly who these girls were.
When I was in high school, one of the teenage phases I went through was watching and re-watching documentaries […]
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Rethinking the Kitchen in Girls’ Play
“Oh, let’s do the kitchen,” said Mary. “There are so many interesting things in the kitchen.” My Doll’s House (1932)
In August 2018, I received a research fellowship from The Strong. Thanks to The Strong’s support, I could see, touch, and “playʺ with the kitchen toys that girls in postwar America might have played with. The kitchen toys! But why the kitchen toys? Aren’t they just miniature kitchens and utensils? As an adult reflecting on my experiences as a […]
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The Rolls-Royce of Jigsaw Puzzles
Everybody recognizes a jigsaw puzzle. A national craze in the 1930s, puzzles continue to sell well today. But few of us know the pleasure of assembling an all-wood, hand-cut puzzle. These playthings for adults first appeared around 1910 in the United States. While basic puzzle construction was simple—glue a paper print to wood or cardboard and then cut it out with a saw—they were made purposefully difficult to assemble. At that time, no serious puzzle came with a picture of […]
Curmudgeonly Charm
Some time ago, I worked at a bookstore. My days were filled with hauling stacks of books, shelving books, looking up titles, and endlessly restocking whatever Oprah’s latest recommendation was. My coworkers were witty and humorous, and on slow days we’d chat while shelving or alphabetizing books. It was during one of these conversations that I first heard the term curmudgeon, as a coworker deemed herself “Captain Curmudgeon” which made me chuckle, but also think. This descriptor remains a personal […]
Lucia Grossberger Morales: Computer Art Pioneer
Computers are amazing machines. They can be serious tools for business or scientific research or they can be platforms for play. For many people, this has meant using computers to play games, but computers have also often served as engines for other forms of creative expression. Lucia Grossberger Morales is one example of someone who, in the early 1980s, not only employed the Apple II to create innovative art but designed a program, The Designer’sToolkit, to help others […]
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Video Game Press Kits as Historical Sources
Each year since 1967 (and twice a year between 1978 and 1994), throngs of people crowd the floors of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), eager to get a first look at the latest technological trends. In the early 1980s as video game developers such as Atari, Mattel, Imagic, General Consumer Electronics (GCE), Activision, and others vied for a share of the booming video game market, publicity teams assembled and handed out carefully curated folders filled with information about […]
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