Strong National Museum of Play

The Strong National Museum of Play, in Rochester, New York, is a collections-based, family-oriented museum focused on play, particularly the cultural history of play, which, as the museum's mission statement asserts, significantly illuminates the American experience.

The story of how the museum came to be runs parallel to scholarship's evaluation of play as a worthwhile subject for study. The Strong Museum was founded by Margaret Woodbury Strong, a Rochester collector who died in 1969 without heirs, leaving half a million artifacts, financial resources, and a museum charter, but no plan for how to organize the museum. Antiques appraisers and museum experts were called in to consider what sort of museum might be based on her collection.

Themes that stood out to these initial appraisers were play, children, imagination, and fun, but in the early 1970s, none of these was considered a worthy subject for a museum. Many scholars did not yet take play scholarship, including scholarship on dolls, toys, children, and childhood, seriously, and children's museums had not yet become a common feature of American cities. Instead, the museum opened to the public in 1982 with the theme of industrialization and everyday life in America.

The public was mildly curious but not captivated, and within a few years, the number of visitors dropped sharply. The museum reconsidered its mission and, in the 1990s, ran several critically acclaimed interactive social history exhibits. Still, attendance was limited, and the museum reconsidered again. By the late 1990s, the study of play, as well as scholarship on childhood, had gained considerable academic credibility. Rediscovering the suggestion of “play” as an orienting theme for the collection, the museum took up the suggestion, and in July 2006, after significant rebuilding and reorientation, the Strong Museum reopened as the Strong National Museum of Play.

The museum includes innovative, collections-based, yet interactive exhibits that illuminate various aspects of play. “Field of Play,” which introduces visitors to the museum, elaborates six defining elements of play: anticipation, surprise, pleasure, understanding, strength, and poise. This exhibit displays relevant artifacts in traditional vitrines alongside creative, hands-on elements, such as a walk-in kaleidoscope and size-distorting mirrors. Visitors can move quickly from playing to reading explanatory plaques to observing collections and back to playing. “Reading Adventureland,” built on the model of a giant pop-up book, explores five traditional genres of children's literature: mystery, fantasy, nonsense, fairy tales, and adventure, also using a mix of artifacts from Strong's collection with interactive elements, such as a child-sized theater, dress-up clothes, a sandbox, and a giant chessboard. Other museum exhibits include a working model supermarket in which a child can select and pay for play food items, a restored and functioning 1918 carousel, an operating 1950s diner, and a walk-in, full-size model of the set of Sesame Street.

The National Toy Hall of Fame is hosted by the Strong National Museum and inducts a couple of toys into its ranks each year. Toys are included based on iconic status (the toy is well-remembered and respected), longevity (the toy has appealed to children across multiple generations), discovery (the toy fosters learning and creativity through play), and innovation (the toy significantly changed how toys are played with or designed). Inductees are selected by a committee including notable play scholars, as well as writers and illustrators of children's books. Toys in the Hall of Fame include such classics as LEGOs, the jump rope, crayons, and the teddy bear, but the museum does not limit consideration to commercial products. In 2005, it inducted the cardboard box, which has appealed to children's imaginations and spirit of play for years.

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