endangered media

By: Hana Hanifah, 2025 Valentine-Cosman Research Fellow
In recent years, the momentum for accessibility in games has gained significant traction. Many custom configurations, such as captions, remappable controls, and adaptable hardware, are becoming the norm as more people, especially those with disabilities, play and engage in games. The Xbox Adaptive Controller and the PS5’s Access Controller have been rightly praised and documented in the mainstream media. However, several decades before they emerged, there was an innovation that quietly went to the […]

Continue Reading about Nintendo’s Forgotten Accessibility Pioneer: The 1989 Handsfree Controller Published on:
February 5, 2026

Cats have been beloved members of our families for centuries. Their curious and often silly nature makes them the subject of many works of art, sources of humor, and entertainment. The Strong was recently gifted a delightful collection of 74 “Mainzer Dressed Cat” postcards, which feature brightly colored scenes of anthropomorphic cats dressed in human clothing and engaging in a variety of humorous activities, in situations that often threaten an impending calamity.
This collection of cards was designed by Swiss painter […]

Continue Reading about Cats, Cards, and Calamity! Published on:
January 26, 2026

Being an Archivist is literally my dream job but one thing I did not expect was how satisfying it is to work with interns. You get to watch as they build confidence day by day in the decisions they make, hear them laugh as they find something unexpected or funny, listen to the yawns while they’re slogging through the “boring” tasks (removing staples from hundreds of pages can get repetitive), and best of all, see that spark ignite into “YES! […]

Continue Reading about Stacks & Steps: Growing with Interns, One Box at a Time Published on:
January 25, 2026

Where can one find a good children’s book in The Strong Museum? The answer is almost everywhere in the museum’s two separate libraries—the Grada Hopeman Gelser mini-branch that is part of the Monroe County Library System (MCLS) and the Brian Sutton-Smith Library and Archives of Play. Both libraries are full of old and new children’s books. Why might that be? Well, children’s literature is a way of learning through the playfulness of storytelling, a major avenue of artistic expression, interacting […]

Continue Reading about Children’s Literature in The Strong’s Collections Published on:
January 16, 2026

By: Eva Maria Rey Pinto, 2025 Valentine-Cosman Research Fellow
Ever wonder how America’s sweetheart snuck into every corner of the Americas? In 1974, Mattel’s founders, Ruth and Elliot Handler, resigned after financial scandals and IRS investigations. This sparked a crisis lasting through the 1980s. New leadership pivoted by licensing Barbie to global toy companies, reducing production costs while maintaining profits through local production and distribution, preserving the brand’s success. Given its geographic proximity, the Latin American market held strategic interest for […]

Continue Reading about Exporting the Dreamhouse: Barbie in South America Published on:
January 2, 2026

By Adam Nedeff, researcher for the National Archives of Game Show History
When the production staff of a game show needs some guidance about what to do, they turn to the bible.
Among many papers recently donated to the National Archives of Game Show History is the bible for The $25,000 Pyramid, as aired on CBS from 1982-88. Not to sound irreverent, but somehow, “bible” is the industry accepted name for an important document that television viewers never see or hear about. […]

Continue Reading about The $25,000 Pyramid Game Show “Bible” Published on:
December 30, 2025

What are your thoughts about amphibians? Maybe that segment of the animal world hasn’t crossed your mind recently, but I’ve been noticing a surprising number of frogs around The Strong museum’s collection. Frogs have been cropping up in children’s stories for centuries now, from “The Frog Prince,” a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm and published in 1812 to more recent books, such as Arnold Lobel’s story Frog and Toad Are Friends (1970), which offers readers a couple […]

Continue Reading about Green with Envy         Published on:
December 23, 2025

The history of coin-operated games often focuses on the stories of big companies, savvy executives, talented game designers, and iconic games. But that is hardly the full story. As my colleague JP Dyson reminds us, where we play matters. That’s one reason why I was so delighted to work with the family of Steve Epstein (1948–2020) to preserve a collection of materials related to his career, including his work to turn The Broadway Arcade in New York City into a […]

Continue Reading about Steve Epstein and The Broadway Arcade Published on:
December 18, 2025

Employees at The Strong are fortunate to work in a place that encourages a fun and playful environment. It’s in our mission statement: “Through play, we encourage learning, nurture creativity, promote discovery, and transform the lives of people of all ages.” This applies not only to our approach to the visitor experience, but also to ourselves as we work.
As a member of the Collections team, I get to test games in the Infinity Arcade exhibit once a month before the […]

Continue Reading about All Work and No Play? Fun in the Workplace Published on:
December 11, 2025