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This Christmas an online commerce company (you know which I’m talking about) failed to cancel an order in my wish-list and so delivered to our front door a foot-long, remote-controlled, battery-powered, blimp-shaped, gyro-stabilized toy drone. At the museum, I’m up to my ears in thinking and writing about play and toys, but playing is another thing entirely. I hovered over sending the package back, but decided to keep it, putting my money where my mouth is, with hilarious, chaotic results.
Such […]

Continue Reading about A Drone of My Own: Toys and Technology Published on:
January 2, 2015

Many will remember how recess became the highlight of a grade-schooler’s day.
At my own elementary school outdoor recess brought together classmates of all athletic abilities and creative talents. On the playground, the swing set filled up quickly with kids aiming to swing high and launch themselves into a pile of wood chips. Girls with gymnastic aspirations claimed the parallel bars to do flips or hang upside-down. Rambunctious boys clambered up the slide, flouting basic playground etiquette.
We scraped our knees and […]

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December 18, 2014

I lost a friend this past weekend.
I first got to know Ralph Baer a little over seven years ago when he reached out to us at The Strong to see if we might be interested in preserving materials documenting his lifework. We, of course, were interested—after all, he was a legend, the man who patented the idea of playing a game on a television, the creator of the first home video game system, and the inventor of Simon, one […]

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December 12, 2014

What comes to mind when you hear the word “animal”? Do you envision farm animals, your pet at home, or something a bit more wild? Perhaps you even think of a Muppet or two. Either way, it’s hard to ignore that animals fulfill a pretty big role when it comes to play.
As toddlers, many of us learn our animals and their corresponding sounds through that popular little ditty “Old MacDonald Had a Farm.” Animal stories can teach us valuable life […]

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December 12, 2014

The beloved sock monkey is easily recognizable, cute, silly, and soft, but where did it originate? According to Bonnie Krauss Connelly’s book, Everything’s Coming up Sock Monkeys!: Art, History and Business of the American Sock Monkey, the classic toy’s beginnings can be traced back to Rockford, Illinois, where Swedish immigrant John Nelson settled in 1852. By 1872, Nelson and his business partner, William Worth Burson, developed an automatic knitting machine that could close the heel and toe of a sock, […]

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December 5, 2014

I count the chance to watch A Christmas Story, a film based on the recollections of the radio raconteur and writer Jean Shepherd, as one of the distinct joys of the season.

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December 4, 2014

ICHEG collects a vast variety of archival materials such as artwork, design documents, and interoffice communication that provide researchers with essential details about how game companies and designers conceived, thought about, created, and sold their games.

Continue Reading about Video Game Focus Groups as History Published on:
December 3, 2014

In many families across America, preparing and then devouring the Thanksgiving Day dinner is followed by a quiet evening watching football or a Charlie Brown television special or simply sleeping off the tranquilizing effects of the largest meal you will eat all year. In my family though, the hours after the meal are not for relaxing—they are for strategizing.
At some point on Thanksgiving Day, my dad is sent out to purchase a newspaper. As soon as the pie plates are […]

Continue Reading about The World Series of Shopping: The Black Friday Game Plan Published on:
November 25, 2014

The historian’s craft always requires probing the past for significance. Making sense of bygone events obliges investigators to guard against irrelevance and superstition. We historians aren’t numerologists or astrologers, and so we sort out ironies and coincidences from meaningful events.

Continue Reading about Tracking Irony Across Lionel Trains History Published on:
November 19, 2014