The Strong National Museum of Play

The Strong National Museum of Play, is part of The Strong in Rochester, New York, United States. Established in 1969 and based initially 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 its 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 and support and substantial financial support from the National Endowment for the Humanities' Exhibitions and Public Programs division.[1]

The museum entrance in 2013

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 twice, in 1997 and 2006.[2][3]

The Museum is now one of five 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, and the Brian Sutton-Smith Library and Archives of Play, and produces the American Journal of Play.

About

Known originally 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).[4]

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 for 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.

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; the space is planned to open in 2022.[13]

Current Exhibits
  • Academy of Interactive Arts and Science
  • America at Play
  • American Comic Book Heroes: The Battle of Good vs. Evil
  • Aquariums
  • The Berenstain Bears: Down a Sunny Dirt Road - An exhibit based on the book series by Stan and Jan Berenstain and the 2003 TV Series.
  • Big League Fun
  • Build, Drive, Go
  • Can You Tell Me How to Get to Sesame Street? - An exhibit based on the 1969 TV series of the same name.
  • DanceLab
  • Dancing Wings Butterfly Garden
  • eGameRevolution
  • Field of Play
  • Game Time!
  • Imagination Destination - An exhibit formerly known as Kid to Kid.
  • Material Girl: Inside the Closet of America's Favorite Doll
  • One History Place
  • Peanuts and Play Display
  • Pinball Playfields
  • Play Pals
  • Reading Adventureland
  • Toys Halls of Fame
  • Wegmans Super Kids Market
  • Women in Games
  • World Video Game Hall of Fame

Rides
  • Elaine Wilson Carousel - An Allan Herschell carousel which opened in 1918.
  • Strong Express Train

See also

References
  1. "A Fascination With The Common Place | AMERICAN HERITAGE". www.americanheritage.com. Retrieved 2018-12-18.
  2. Adams, Rollie G. "Ready, Set, Go: Finally a Museum of Play." History News 61, no. 3. (2006): 7-11
  3. Bensch, Christopher. "From Decorative Arts to the World of Play—Strong Museum Evolves." Newsletter of the Decorative Arts Society, Inc. 15, no. 3. (2007)
  4. Tangorra Matelic, Candace. "Understanding Change and Transformations in History Organizations." History News 63, no. 2 (2008): 7-13
  5. Alexander, Edward P. and Mary, Museums in Motion: An Introduction to the History and Functions of Museums, 2nd ed. Lanham: AltaMira Press, 2008.
  6. Kotler, Neil G. Museum Marketing and Strategy: Designing Missions, Building Audiences, Generating Revenue and Resources. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2008.
  7. Brown, Stuart. Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul. New York: Penguin Group, 2009.
  8. Hoffman, Joan and Sara Boettrich. "Setting the Stage for Free Play: Museum Environments That Inspire Creativity." Hand-to-Hand 22, no. 4. (2008): 3-5
  9. Eberle, Scott. G. "How a Museum Discovered the Transforming Power of Play." Journal of Museum Education 33, no. 3 (2008): 265-272
  10. Bitter, Ann. "Challenging Transitions: Planning for Change." Hand-to-Hand 17, no. 2 (2003): 2-8
  11. Skramstad, Harold and Susan. A Handbook for Museum Trustees. Washington, D.C.: American Association of Museums, 2003.
  12. Weil, Stephen E. Making Museums Matter. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2002.
  13. McAloon, Alissa (September 26, 2019). "The Strong Museum receives grant to fund exhibit on the cultural impact of video games". Gamasutra. Retrieved September 26, 2019.

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