Established | 1969 |
---|---|
Location | Rochester, NY, USA |
Type | Children's museum |
Collections | Toys, video games |
Owner | The Strong |
Website | museumofplay.org |
The Strong National Museum of Play (also known as just The Strong Museum or simply the Strong) 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.
For at least fifteen years after it opened, the mission of the museum was to interpret the social and cultural history of average Americans between 1830 and 1940, under the direction of H.J. Swinney and William T. Alderson. Mrs. Strong's collections of dolls and toys, American and European decorative arts, prints, paintings, Japanese crafts, and advertising ephemera provided a firm foundation for this mission, and were supplemented with collections purchased and donated to more fully support the museum's early mission. The museum received considerable local and national publicity/support as well as substantial financial support from the National Endowment for the Humanities' Exhibitions and Public Programs division. [1]
In the 1990s, the museum's Board of Trustees and director changed the museum's mission to collecting, preserving, and interpreting the history of play. Since then, it has refined and increased its collections (hundreds of thousands of items), and expanded thrice, in 1997, 2006, and 2023. [2] [3] [4]
The museum is now one of six Play Partners of The Strong, which is also home to the National Toy Hall of Fame, the International Center for the History of Electronic Games, the World Video Game Hall of Fame, and the Brian Sutton-Smith Library and Archives of Play, and produces the American Journal of Play .
Originally known as the "Margaret Woodbury Strong Museum" and later simply as the "Strong Museum", it became the "Strong National Museum of Play" in 2006, after completing renovations and an expansion that nearly doubled its size to 282,000 square feet (26,200 m2). [3]
The National Museum of Play is the only collections-based museum anywhere devoted solely to the study of play, and although it is a history museum, it has the interactive characteristics of a children's museum, making it the second largest museum of that type in the United States. [5] [6] [7] [8] The museum includes exhibits that interpret the key elements of play, as well as allow guests to explore the worlds of Sesame Street, The Berenstain Bears, Reading Adventureland, and the Dancing Wings Butterfly Garden. [9] [10] [11] [12]
The museum's exhibits are immersively themed to video games, storybooks, television shows, education, nature, history, comic books, carousel and train rides, and children's lifestyles. eGameRevolution is the first permanent video game exhibit in the US and includes the World Video Game Hall of Fame. The National Toy Hall of Fame is at the museum. Dancing Wings Butterfly Garden features thousands of butterflies, and is the largest indoor butterfly garden in New York. The Berenstain Bears: Down a Sunny Dirt Road is an original, permanent exhibit produced in partnership with the Berenstain family.
In 2019, The Strong Museum received a US$700,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to develop an interactive exhibit space to show the influence of video games on culture, with plans to open in 2022. [13] After delays, the expansions were unveiled in July 2023, which included the ESL Digital Worlds exhibit, a new space to house the World Video Game Hall of Fame, and the Hasbro Game Park, a large board game-themed outdoor space. The additions added 90,000 square feet (8,400 m2) of space at a final cost of US$75,000,000. [4]
On 10 November 2023, the "War Toys: Ukraine" exhibit, highlighting Russian war crimes in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War, was opened for the first time in The Strong Museum, as a part of a tour around museums in North America: [14] [15] [16] [17]
The Strong is honored to be the first museum to host the War Toys: Ukraine exhibition. This exhibit is a call to action, raising awareness about the lasting impact of armed conflict on the youngest among us. It will serve as a testament to the resilience of these children and a reminder that we must stand with them in solidarity.
— Steve Dubnik, president & CEO of The Strong, on https://www.museumofplay.org/press-release/war-toys-ukraine-now-open/
The exhibit remained open at The Strong till March 16, 2024.
The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, Tennessee, is one of the world's largest museums and research centers dedicated to the preservation and interpretation of American vernacular music. Chartered in 1964, the museum has amassed one of the world's most extensive musical collections.
Jenga is a game of physical skill created by British board game designer and author Leslie Scott and marketed by Hasbro. The name comes from the Swahili word "kujenga" which means 'to build or construct'. Players take turns removing one block at a time from a tower constructed of 54 blocks. Each block removed is then placed on top of the tower, creating a progressively more unstable structure. The game ends when the tower falls over.
The Berenstain Bears is a children's literature franchise created by Stan and Jan Berenstain and continued by their son, Mike Berenstain. The books feature a family of anthropomorphic grizzly bears who generally learn a moral or safety-related lesson in the course of each story.
A jack-in-the-box is a children's toy that outwardly consists of a music box with a crank. When the crank is turned, a music box mechanism in the toy plays a melody. After the crank has been turned a sufficient number of times, the lid pops open and a figure, usually a clown or jester, pops out of the box. Some jacks-in-the-box open at random times when cranked, making the startle even more effective. Many of those that use "Pop Goes the Weasel" open at the point in the melody when the word "pop" would be sung. In 2005, the jack-in-the-box was inducted into the U.S. National Toy Hall of Fame, where are displayed all types of versions of the toy, starting from the beginning versions, and ending with the most recently manufactured versions.
The National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. With 4.4 million visitors in 2023, it was the second most-visited museum in the United States.
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.
The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County is the largest natural and historical museum in the western United States. The museum is located in Exposition Park, Los Angeles, next to the California Science Center. Its collections include nearly 35 million specimens and artifacts and cover 4.5 billion years of history. This large collection comprises not only of specimens for exhibition, but also vast research collections housed on and offsite.
Canora is a town at the junction of Highways 5 and 9 in east-central Saskatchewan, about 50 km north of Yorkton. It is centrally located on the corners of four adjacent rural municipalities, including the RM of Good Lake. The community is home to approximately 3,500 residents and is part of the Canora-Pelly electoral district. The community was founded along the Canadian Northern Railway tracks — one of the companies that evolved into the Canadian National Railway (CN), and two CN freight lines still run through Canora. The Canora railway station, downtown on the CN east-west line before the switch to the northbound line, is served by Via Rail on its passenger service from Winnipeg to Churchill, Manitoba. As of 2016, 53% of the town's residents are either from Ukraine or of Ukrainian descent, with the language still widely spoken in the community.
The Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame & Museum is a bluegrass music museum in Owensboro, Kentucky, United States. The museum has interactive exhibits, posters, costumes, live instrument demonstrations, and International Bluegrass Music Association's Hall of Fame. The museum has 64,000 square feet of exhibits, offices, and venues on three floors. As a non-profit group, the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame & Museum has raised funds with the help of famous bluegrass musicians such as Ricky Skaggs and Ralph Stanley.
The Houston Museum of Natural Science is a natural history museum located on the northern border of Hermann Park in Houston, Texas, United States. The museum was established in 1909 by the Houston Museum and Scientific Society, an organization whose goals were to provide a free institution for the people of Houston focusing on education and science. The museum complex consists of a central facility with four floors of natural science halls and exhibits, the Burke Baker Planetarium, the Cockrell Butterfly Center, and the Wortham Giant Screen Theatre. In 2022, the museum received 1,520,000 visitors, making it seventh on the List of most-visited museums in the United States, and was the third most-visited U.S. science museum. Much of the museum's popularity is attributed to its large number of special or guest exhibits.
Videotopia is a travelling science museum exhibition documenting the history of video games. Originally created by Keith Feinstein, it is based on a larger collection of video game machines, now housed at The Strong in Rochester, New York.
The Paul W. Bryant Museum is located on the campus of the University of Alabama, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Founded in 1985, the museum was opened in 1988 to "house the history of Alabama football, with special emphasis on the legendary coach" Paul William "Bear" Bryant.
A toy museum is a museum for toys. They typically showcase toys from a particular culture or period with their history. These are distinct from children's museums, which are museums for children, and are often interactive – toy museums may be aimed at children or adults, and may have interactive exhibits or be exclusively for display.
Margaret Woodbury Strong was an American collector and philanthropist. Strong was an avid collector, especially of toys and her large collection formed the basis for the Strong National Museum of Play.
The International Center for the History of Electronic Games (ICHEG) collects, studies, and interprets video games, other electronic games, and related materials and the ways in which electronic games are changing how people play, learn, and connect with each other, including across boundaries of culture and geography. Located at The Strong in Rochester, New York, United States, it houses one of the world's largest, most comprehensive collections of electronic game platforms, games, and related materials, with more than 37,000 items.
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":
Playthings was an American trade magazine focusing on the toy and game industry. It was founded in 1902 by editor Robert McCready and publisher Henry C. Nathan, and it was published in physical form by Sandow Media on a monthly basis until Fall 2010 when it became an insert section and was merged with Gifts & Decorative Accessories magazine. Playthings was also published online and supplemented by a weekly email newsletter, Playthings Extra. The magazine won multiple Jesse H. Neal Awards, and was generally regarded as the premier trade magazine of the American toy industry.
The World Video Game Hall of Fame is an international hall of fame for video games. The hall's administration is overseen by The Strong's International Center for the History of Electronic Games, and is located at The Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York, United States. The museum began the International Center for the History of Electronic Games in 2009, announced the formation of the hall of fame in February 2015, and opened it on June 4, 2015. It is located in a dedicated part of the "ESL Digital Worlds: High Score" exhibit at the National Museum of Play; prior to an expansion of the museum in 2023 it was located in the museum's "eGameRevolution" exhibit. The Strong has also run the National Toy Hall of Fame since 2002.
The State Museum of Toys is one of the unique museum in Kyiv (Ukraine).
George Rollie Adams, is an American educator, historian, author, and museum professional. 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. 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. 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, Brian Sutton-Smith Library and Archives of Play, Woodbury School, and American Journal of Play.
Alina's story is one of 30 narratives that renowned photographer Brian McCarty recreated for "War Toys: Ukraine," an art exhibit that explores the impact of armed conflict on children, opening at The Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York, the only museum in the U.S. dedicated to the history of play.