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In the 1880s the toymaker Charles Crandall invented a dexterity game a player could hold in one hand. People had likely crafted similar games, often called “ball-in-a-maze” puzzles, for many years. But Crandall’s creation, titled Pigs in Clover, was the first to become popular, sell thousands of units, and cause enough of a stir to be written about and imitated. How did this happen?
Pigs in Clover consists of three concentric cardboard rings fixed to a wood base. The puzzle challenges […]

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August 1, 2018

If you’re one of the more than half-million visitors to The Strong museum each year, you may have spotted the gallery wall about the life of founder Margaret Woodbury Strong en route to the admissions desk (and later, when you mosey back over to the food court). The museum in its current state grew out of the original collections of dolls, dollhouses, and other playthings amassed and cherished by Margaret Woodbury Strong during her lifetime. Simply put, without Margaret, there […]

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July 24, 2018

Get out your library cards and alert your book club! As far as we’re concerned, National Toy Hall of Fame season never ends, making it a fine time for another edition of Toy Stories: Tales of the Games and Toys We Love. Last year, I recommended books about 11 Toy Hall of Fame inductees and their inventors. This year, dive into four “old-timers” and one new inductee with this fresh reading list!
LEGO, Class of 1998
Named “Toy of the Century” in […]

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July 13, 2018

In this age of sharing every idle thought online, younger generations might find it hard to believe that publicly documenting one’s own life wasn’t always the norm. The most ancient forms of memory were kept in the oral tradition, and the keepers of records were individuals entrusted with the task of memorizing details and transmitting them through recitation to others. As writing systems developed and literacy rose across the globe, the written record became the rule (and oftentimes, entire groups […]

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June 29, 2018

As a cycling enthusiast, I was a thrill to see a velocipede—an early form of bicycle—in the conservation lab. Pierre Lallement and Pierre Michaux patented the design for the velocipede in 1866 before Lallement moved to New Haven, Connecticut, and made improvements to the velocipede on his own. He also gave license to American bike-builders for variations of the velocipede. These early wheelmen obsessed over different ways to power a bicycle—steam, electricity, or dog-powered locomotion.
Most velocipedes haven’t survived. They were […]

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June 15, 2018

In the context of toy and sports history, skateboards and skateboarding have had a relatively short existence. Skateboarding might be the phoenix of the sports world: rising, dying out, and rising again. The sport has endured a fair share of highs and lows over the last 60-plus years.
However, before skateboards there were scooters, sometimes known as kick scooters and push scooters. Varied forms of scooters have been traced back to the early 1900s, most of them made from wood, metal, or […]

Continue Reading about Sidewalk Surfing: The Gnarly History of Skateboarding Part I (1940s to 1972) Published on:
June 7, 2018

 
 

I had the privilege of digging through the archives at The Strong museum during the last week before Labor Day 2017. The collection had a great deal to offer my research interests, which center on game studies generally and competitive gaming (esports) specifically. The research project I had proposed focused on investigating the prehistory of esports. Today, a class of competitive players earn a living by excelling in tournaments for games such as League of Legends and Super Smash Bros. Melee, […]

Continue Reading about Tournaments, Contests, and International Scoreboards: A Prehistory of Esports in the 1980s Arcade Published on:
June 1, 2018

How do you tell the history of video games?
For more than a decade, The Strong has been collecting, preserving, and interpreting the history of video games. Over that time our collection has grown to more than 60,000 video games and related artifacts, as well as hundreds of thousands of video game-related items in our archives. We’ve showcased them in exhibits, featured them in online content like our timeline of the history of video games, and made them available to scholars […]

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May 22, 2018

“I love songs!”
This short phrase is something I’ve been known to say (or occasionally shout) with great enthusiasm. Yes, I could simply say I love music, but that wouldn’t encompass all of those catchy little improvised (and largely a cappella) ditties made up with friends or family while driving, working, cooking, or whenever else inspiration may strike. The word “songs” seems more fitting given the broader creative terrain it covers. Not to mention, most people chuckle or at least crack […]

Continue Reading about Play It Again: Enjoying Music Through the Ages Published on:
May 15, 2018