George Rollie Adams | |
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Born | September 11, 1941 |
Nationality | American |
Education | Louisiana Tech University (BA, MA) University of Arizona (PhD) |
Occupations |
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George Rollie Adams (born September 11, 1941), is an American educator, historian, author, and museum professional. [1] As president and CEO of The Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York, from 1987 through 2016, Adams led the development of the world's first collections-based history museum devoted solely to the study of play and its critical role in learning and human development and the ways in which play illuminates cultural history. [2] During his tenure, The Strong became home to the world's most comprehensive collection of toys, dolls, board games, electronic games, and other artifacts and documents pertaining to the history of play. [3] The Strong also acquired the National Toy Hall of Fame and established the International Center for the History of Electronic Games, World Video Game Hall of Fame, [4] Brian Sutton-Smith Library and Archives of Play, Woodbury School, and American Journal of Play.
George Rollie Adams grew up in southern Arkansas. After receiving a B.A. in Social Science Education and English from Louisiana Tech University, he taught history for four years at El Dorado, Arkansas, High School. While teaching, he earned a M.A. in Social Science Education from Louisiana Tech University, and subsequently he earned a Ph.D. in American History from the University of Arizona. [5]
During the mid-to-late 1970s and early 1980s, Adams held several positions at the American Association for State and Local History, including director of the National Historic Landmarks Project and director of Education. He then served two years as executive director of the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society in New York State and two years jointly as director of the Louisiana State Museum in New Orleans and assistant secretary for Culture, Recreation, and Tourism for the State of Louisiana. [6]
At The Strong, Adams introduced a boundary-less organizational structure, led two major physical expansions, and earned recognition for innovation in entrepreneurial museum management. [7] He is currently president and CEO emeritus of The Strong. [8]
Adams has served on the boards of the American Alliance of Museums, National History Day, Mid-South Humanities Project, Museum Association of New York, New York State Historical Records Advisory Board, Rochester Downtown Development Corporation, Visit Rochester, Family Services of Rochester, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Greater Rochester Commission. He has also served on the Finger Lakes Regional Economic Development Council Working Group on the Arts and Tourism.
He is recipient of the CEO of the Year Award from the Rochester Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America, Tourism Civic Award from Visit Rochester, Anne Ackerson Innovation in Leadership Award from the Museum Association of New York, and Rochester Business Journal ICON Award for Success and Leadership.
Adams’s latest books are Found in Pieces and South of Little Rock, historical novels set during the civil rights movement. Between them, they have received ten awards for independently published historical and social issues fiction. His previous published works include Ordinary People and Everyday Life, co-edited with James B. Gardner (American Association for State and Local History, 1980); Nashville: A Pictorial History, co-authored with Ralph Jerry Christian (The Donning Company, 1981, 1988); and General William S. Harney: Prince of Dragoons (University of Nebraska Press, 2001). [9] He contributed forewords to David Carr, The Promise of Cultural Institutions (New York: AltaMira Press, 2003) and Scott G. Eberle, Classic Toys of the National Toy Hall of Fame (Running Press, 2009). [10]
George Eastman was an American entrepreneur who founded the Eastman Kodak Company and helped to bring the photographic use of roll film into the mainstream. After a decade of experiments in photography, he patented and sold a roll film camera, making amateur photography accessible to the general public for the first time. Working as the treasurer and later president of Kodak, he oversaw the expansion of the company and the film industry.
Natchez, officially the City of Natchez, is the only city in and the county seat of Adams County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 14,520 at the 2020 census. Located on the Mississippi River across from Vidalia in Concordia Parish, Louisiana, Natchez was a prominent city in the antebellum years, a center of cotton planters and Mississippi River trade.
Roland Glen Fingers is an American former right-handed relief pitcher in Major League Baseball who played for three teams between 1968 and 1985. His effectiveness helped to redefine the value of relievers within baseball and to usher in the modern closer role. A seven-time All-Star, he led the major leagues in saves three times, and was named Rolaids Relief Man of the Year four times. He first gained prominence as a member of the Oakland Athletics championship teams of the early 1970s, when his flamboyant handlebar mustache made him perhaps the most identifiable member of The Mustache Gang, which led Oakland to become the only non-New York Yankees team ever to win three consecutive World Series titles. Fingers was named the Most Valuable Player of the 1974 World Series after earning a win in the opener and saves in the last three games to secure the title.
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William Selby Harney, otherwise known among the Lakota as "Woman Killer" and "Mad Bear," was an American cavalry officer in the US Army, who became known during the Indian Wars and the Mexican–American War for his brutality and ruthlessness. One of five general officers in the US Army at the beginning of the American Civil War, he was removed from overseeing the Department of the West because of his Southern sympathies early in the war, although he kept Missouri from joining the Confederacy. Under President Andrew Johnson, he served on the Indian Peace Commission, negotiating in several treaties before spending his retirement partly in Missouri and partly trading reminiscences with Jefferson Davis and Ulysses S. Grant in Mississippi, eventually moving to Florida afterwards, where he spent the last few years of his life.
The Strong National Museum of Play is part of The Strong in Rochester, New York, United States. Established in 1969 and initially based on the personal collection of Rochester native Margaret Woodbury Strong, the museum opened to the public in 1982, after several years of planning, cataloguing, and exhibition development for the museum's new building in downtown Rochester.
The National Toy Hall of Fame is a U.S. hall of fame that recognizes the contributions of toys and games that have sustained their popularity for many years. Criteria for induction include: icon status ; longevity ; discovery ; and innovation. Established in 1998 under the direction of Ed Sobey, it was originally housed at A. C. Gilbert's Discovery Village in Salem, Oregon, United States, but was moved to the Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York, in 2002 after it outgrew its original home.
William Henson Moore III is an American attorney and businessman. He is a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives, having represented Louisiana's 6th congressional district, based in Baton Rouge, from 1975 to 1987. He was only the second Republican to have represented Louisiana in the House since Reconstruction, the first having been David C. Treen, then of Jefferson Parish.
Timothy Paul Stoddard is an American former professional baseball pitcher. A right-handed pitcher, he played for six different teams in Major League Baseball between 1975 and 1989, and was a member of the 1983 Baltimore Orioles championship team. He is currently the pitching coach for the baseball team at North Central College. Stoddard is one of only two men to have played in both a World Series and a Final Four of the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship, along with fellow East Chicago Washington High School alumnus Kenny Lofton.
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Joe Profit is an American former professional football player who was a running back for the Atlanta Falcons in the National Football League (NFL). He spent two seasons, plus part of a third, on the Atlanta Falcons before moving to the New Orleans Saints. He was selected in the first round with the seventh overall pick in the 1971 NFL draft. In his three seasons in the NFL, he rushed 133 times for 471 yards and three touchdowns. He spent the 1974 season with the Birmingham Americans and 1975 with the Birmingham Vulcans, both of the World Football League. He played college football at Northeast Louisiana University. Profit ran as a Republican in 2018 for Congress in Georgia's 4th congressional district, losing to incumbent Democrat Hank Johnson.
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This article brings together lists of artists, locations, artistic productions and movements associated with upstate New York.
The Strong is an interactive, collections-based educational institution in Rochester, New York, United States, devoted to the study and exploration of play. It carries out this mission through six programmatic arms called "Play Partners":