In her 2011 book Alone Together, Sherry Turkle wrote that “in the half-light of virtual community, we may feel utterly alone. As we distribute ourselves, we may abandon ourselves.” Turkle’s concern 14 years ago that anthropomorphized machines and digital networks might counterintuitively alienate us from each other now seems almost quaint post-Covid 19 as many of us grapple with the impact of generative AI. I came to The Strong’s Brian Sutton-Smith Library and Archives of Play to better understand the role of women as creators and as a market for games. By the end of the week, I realized that the most powerful part of this experience with the archives was uncovering the individual voices of creators and players page-by-page in their mimeographed, dot-matrixed, and handwritten notes. While I looked at later documents nicely printed from Microsoft Word, it was the faded, messy documents where I felt a deeper connection to their creators. In my research, I am most interested in women’s labor and leisure time when it comes to gaming. This led me to look at materials from The Strong by women in the game industry, market research, and periodicals. In this blog post, I highlight three of the collections I examined.

Computers, the internet, and all manner of tech have been blamed for isolating people from each other in exchange for an ersatz relationship with games or online life. Yet, there was evidence in The Strong’s collection that many game designers were interested in bringing people together through play. In a paper called “Multi-Player Games,” Danielle Bunten Berry, best known for 1983’s M.U.L.E., wrote, “From my point of view there is nothing a computer can do in a solo game that compares with the feeling you get from interacting with real people.” Bunten Berry was an early proponent of multiplayer games when the computer industry seemed to be moving in the other direction. Instead of envisioning a digital game as a relationship between user and computer or console, Bunten Berry saw the potential in a game to be a conduit for connection through multiplayer games.

Another collection that I felt drawn to was from HeR Interactive (1995–present), whose early motto was “For Girls Who Aren’t Afraid of a Mouse.” Unlike many other gaming companies at the time whose approach was to take an existing game but make it pink, companies like HeR Interactive and its contemporary Purple Moon (1996–1999) asked girls what they wanted in a game through interviews, focus groups and, in HeR Interactive’s case, by creating a teen advisory board. And girls weren’t afraid to share their feelings about the games. One girl wrote on her 1999 application to the teen advisory board that she wanted to be a member in order to “keep games for girls non-sexist and fun. Would like to see a game riding horses NOT with Barbie. Tired of boy games where the girl is rescued and almost always has big boobs. Would like brave and smart girls and athletic girls. Would like to see a girl save a boy.” One of my other favorites was a letter written to HeR Interactive’s president Megan Gaiser in 2011 from 15-year-old Katherine critiquing some elements in one of their Nancy Drew games, including the fact that Nancy “shrieks at the sight of a mouse despite the fact that your old slogan was ‘For girls not afraid of a mouse.’” In contrast to the assumption that girls were looking for something easy, much of their feedback was that they liked games that “made them think.” The Nancy Drew games also have intergenerational appeal. In printouts of reviews from Amazon and other game review websites, grandmothers lauded a game that they could play alone or with their grandkids.

Drawing back even further in time, I had the pleasure of looking at some early issues of the tabletop roleplaying game fanzine Alarums & Excursions (A&E), which was continuously edited and published by Lee Gold from 1975 until April 2025. Game historians Jon Peterson, Aaron Trammell, and Nikki Crenshaw have published works on A&E, but it was something else to see it myself and it took me a while to understand how to read it. Alarums & Excursions was an Amateur Press Association (APA), where contributors sent in their contributions (their own zines) to a central editor who would collate and distribute them. In Alarums & Excursions #60 from August 1980, Lee Gold estimated that she spent about 80 hours a month working on A&E, not including the time her husband Barry took to mimeograph and staple the pages. Each issue of A&E was about 60-80 pages (the maximum length accepted by Gold was 160 pages, according to A&E 68 from April 1981). Each zine was assembled from letter-sized, double-sided, single-spaced pages typed and mimeographed and stapled by the Golds. Not having seen A&E before, and having come of age in the 1990s, I had something much smaller in mind for the concept of “zine.” Before the advent of internet forums, APA publications like A&E directed comments to contributors of previous issues. Just like internet forums, there were ongoing disagreements—like whether female dwarves had beards and whether the increase in young players was a sign of success for gaming or a mere nuisance to the established gaming cohort. In almost every issue I looked at from 1978–1981, there were also discussions about women roleplayers. Contributors pontificated on why there weren’t larger numbers of women in roleplaying. More interesting to me was how deeply they discussed issues that could potentially face female characters such as pregnancy and the use of birth control. Because tabletop RPGs have their origins in wargaming, there was always a tension between the fantasy and “realism,” that is, what would be realistic given the fantastical, pseudo-medieval settings.

Unsurprisingly, the privileging of what Aaron Trammell calls the “accuracy of simulation over the ethics of simulation” did not sit well with everyone. In issue #63, electrical engineering graduate student Nancy Jane Bailey goes on a “tirade” (her word), letting readers know exactly why there weren’t more women in tabletop roleplaying. Among her reasons, she directly addresses the ongoing discourse about female characters, sex, and pregnancy, which was a commonly discussed topic in these early issues. Bailey argued that without access to reliable birth control, sexually active female characters would be at a strong disadvantage. She added, “In a world where magic is common, there must be some safe, reliable form of magical birth control… There is no purpose to female characters being penalized for having the same sort of active sex-life that most players seem to feel is necessary for the male characters.”

In the issues that I observed at The Strong, Lee Gold often retyped her contributors’ submissions to format them correctly. In some cases, that meant retyping commentary that she disagreed with. In issue #53 from January 1980, she wrote, “From time to time I contemplate charging an additional fee to insult others in A&E. (Say one dollar per paragraph). You have nudged me slightly closer to instituting this surcharge.” From a contemporary perspective, that A&E was an open forum despite having a single editor is striking because Gold could have easily rejected such pieces.

This was my first time working in a physical archive and it was a unique experience. For five to six hours a day, I would sit in a very cold, quiet room, my cell phone tucked away in a locker, flipping through gaming history alongside one or two fellow researchers. On paper, it sounds a little isolating, but on the contrary, observing documents, especially those that are not publicly available, was incredibly intimate. I had expected a wow factor to seeing some of the documents, but there was also a mix of other emotions—sadness, loss, anxiety, and hope— bound up in the personal and business papers of early gaming contributors. I’m grateful that I had the opportunity to access these collections which helped me with my research but, more importantly, allowed me to connect across time and space with women who were pioneers in gaming.

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Appropriate for International Day of Play, the goal of each game is to travel across countries and oceans. In The Game of Travel, players draw tickets with a list of locations. On a player’s turn, they proceed to the next location on their ticket. Once they’ve visited each location on the card, they draw a new ticket that takes them on the next leg of the journey. Players win by visiting Constantinople (now Istanbul) and returning to the United States. Named after historian and children’s book author Hendrik Van Loon, the Wide World Game was released almost 40 years after The Game of Travel. Fittingly, given its title, the game features a wider world than its predecessor. While The Game of Travel restricts players to Europe and the Atlantic Ocean, the later game’s routes take players across every continent except Antarctica. Here, the goal is to be the first to travel from San Francisco to Manila. The Wide World Game follows the same basic flow of moving between cities according to one’s tickets.

Both games were influenced by the increasing availability of international travel around the turn of the 20th century. Alongside technological developments and Gilded Age economic changes, the number of issued U.S. passports increased significantly in the late 19th century. Steamships and trains made travel more accessible to a growing middle class. Such methods of travel are highlighted in the games through an unusual feature. The Game of Travel has players swap out their moving marker according to the method of travel: a train when traveling by land, a ship if by sea. Since the games are so similar, though, it’s interesting to see where they differ. The wide world changed between 1894 and 1933. By the 1930s, there were several commercial airlines in the U.S., and with new forms of travel come changes to the rules. The Game of Travel requires players to move one city at a time, but the airplane in the newer game lets players move through as many as six cities in a single turn!

Guests could appreciate many things about the games if we showcased them in a display. The Game of Travel is a beautiful production. Its cover features painterly illustrations of attractive destinations like the canals of Venice and England’s Windsor Castle. Its metal steamships shimmer in the light. The Wide World Game’s stylized world map appears hand-drawn with vibrant colors. I’m sure guests would be delighted to see them. With interpretive labels, we could provide some information about the games’ rules and historical context. But games are meant to be played.

To be clear, not even I get to play the games in our collection. This is for good reason, although I’m often dying to give the games a try. For one, many of them are fragile. The Game of Travel was printed more than 100 years ago, and it shows. The board is coming off in flakes, leaving holes in eastern Europe. We wear gloves when handling artifacts not just to protect the objects, but also to protect ourselves. The malleability of the steamship tokens hints that they are likely made of toxic metals, and paint used in the Wide World Game is probably also dangerous. So, how can we have guests engage with these historic games without putting them or the games at risk?

We chose to create our own versions of each game. Making the copies required collaboration between multiple teams at the museum. First, I scanned the games’ boards and cards and sent the scans off to Corinna, one of our public programs coordinators, to fabricate those components. They pasted the boards to a large piece of cardboard and printed out and laminated the cards. Meanwhile, Martin, our arcade game conservation technician, began 3D printing trains, planes, and ships using a resin printer. Martin’s trains are a real highlight, featuring little linked cars that follow behind the locomotive. After laminating the cards and sealing the boards, our more robust versions of the games were ready to be played with by childhood hands.

Our International Day of Play programming was a success. I delivered a small presentation showcasing the original games, along with some other travel-themed games and puzzles, while our associate curator Natalie gave a fascinating talk about postcards and souvenirs. The reproduced games were available to play all day. The preservation of board games is important. Researchers come from across the globe to study our collection. But there are probably very few living people who’ve actually played these games. I’m excited that we gave our visitors a chance to join that exclusive group.

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On September 16, film lovers mourned the loss Robert Redford, star of The Sting, Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid, All the President’s Men, and many other popular movies. For game show fans, the name Robert Redford is connected with one film where he never stepped in front of the camera: he directed 1994’s Quiz Show, a dramatic retelling of the 1950s quiz show scandal.

The scandal involved the producers of several game shows effectively rigging the outcomes, and claiming that the shows were not rigged. One of these shows was NBC’s Twenty One. Herb Stempel had been winning games and had become a champion, but Twenty One executive producer Dan Enright told him to lose to a handsome, charismatic newcomer named Charles Van Doren. Apparently, Enright promised Stempel a slot as a panelist on a new series in development, but Enright didn’t keep his promise, and Stempel blew the whistle. Unfortunately, nobody seemed to care. Not much happened until another contestant on another popular show called Dotto went public with a similar claim. This led to investigations, a Grand Jury, Congressional hearings, cancellation of many game shows, and federal regulations to prevent rigging in the future.

More than 30 years after the dust had settled from the scandal, Robert Redford made Quiz Show to explore what happened. In 1994, he told interviewer Bobbie Wygant, “[The quiz show scandal] has so much to do with where we are today…where we can be so numb, so cynical, and so…shoulder-shrugging about major moral violations in our lives. Falls from grace, from presidents to military people to political figures, religious leaders… leaves us with this eroded trust, which is sort of a big deal. [A] society without something to trust, a society awash in moral ambiguity is not a great place to be, so how did we get there?”

Robert Redford’s Quiz Show provided a behind-the-scenes look at NBC’s Twenty One, but it mostly ignored the complicated legal questions. It’s a motion picture with no documentary intentions. According to some critics, the movie’s storytelling was no more trustworthy than the producers and contestants who perpetrated the scandals. And, from our perhaps more accurate historical perspective, neither the scandals nor the movie nor the legal and journalistic frenzy surrounding the quiz scandals ought to be trusted.

As with many “based-on-a-true-story” films, Quiz Show used reality as a jumping-off point. In the movie, Charles Van Doren auditioned to be a contestant on Tic Tac Dough (another popular game show from the same production company). That never happened. In fact, Twenty One producer met Van Doren at a party and cast him — with none of the application or testing process common today on game shows. In the film, Stempel fails to answer a question and loses the game. That didn’t happen either. As with any fictionalized account of real events, the movie takes liberties to make the story more interesting. Congressional attorney Richard Goodwin is credited as a co-producer on the film. He told The Washington Post, “[Robert Redford’s team] is not trying to con anyone. They’re trying to make a good movie.”

And that’s reasonable, but as Twenty One co-executive producer Dan Enright’s son Don pointed out in his oral history interview for The Strong Museum’s National Archives of Game Show History, Redford conceded to altering the truth to make a more interesting entertainment product… and added, isn’t that what the quiz show producers were doing?

Apparently, the quiz show producers of the 1950s accomplished their goal. In 1987, film critics Siskel & Ebert enthusiastically reviewed a Shokus Video collection of big-money quiz show episodes from the 1950s. Gene Siskel freely admitted, “I couldn’t care if some of the contestants were briefed beforehand. It is great theater!”

Roger Ebert, reviewing Redford’s Quiz Show seven years later, printed a review that seemed to grieve for what had been lost from television’s past. Ebert admitted that he simply didn’t like modern game shows. Instead, he appreciated the challenging, if rigged, quiz shows of the 1950s.

Ebert also seemed to view the quiz show scandals in the same light that Redford saw them—as the end of something that a nation used to possess. “Now take stock of what we have lost in the four decades since Twenty One came crashing down. We have lost a respect for intelligence; we reward people for whatever they happen to have learned, instead of feeling they might learn more. We have forgotten that the end does not justify the means – especially when the end is a high TV rating or any other kind of popular success. And we have lost a certain innocent idealism.”

That may be true, but an idealist might also believe that it’s better for a game show to be a truly honest endeavor. Because of the scandal captured in Redford’s film, laws were enacted and measures were put into place to ensure exactly that. For over 65 years, game shows have been produced in accordance with these rules.

To learn more about those laws, NAGSH has produced another oral history interview, this one focused entirely on “standards and practices.” These standards and practices are followed by every contemporary game show producer, staff member, network executive, advertising executive, contestant, and host.

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Margaret Woodbury Strong, the museum’s founder, was an avid collector of dollhouses. A ticket from 1958 invited guests to the “First Public Showing of Mrs. Homer Strong’s World-Famous Collection of Doll Houses” at her residence in Pittsford, New York. The nearly 100 dollhouses exhibited represented only a portion of her collection. In celebration of Margaret Woodbury Strong’s fascination with spectacular miniatures, The Strong National Museum of Play has opened Dollhouses Unveiled. The exhibit provides a unique opportunity to view dozens of rare dollhouses and miniatures from The Strong’s collections (many not seen on public view in decades along with others new to the museum).

The dollhouses on display provide a sample of design and play patterns from the 1830s to present day. A few highlights include the Mystery House and Blue Roof Victorian Mansion, as they have been called. Around 1890, the famed FAO Schwarz toy store carried a line of dollhouses with delicately carved wood accents. Dollhouse expert Flora Gill Jacobs later named the series “Mystery Doll Houses,” because she couldn’t identify the maker, though some speculated that prisoners made them. The elaborate houses signaled luxury and were correspondingly expensive. One version sold for $80—nearly a half-month’s salary for a lawyer at the time. During the same decade, the Mortiz Gottschalk Company created an elaborate mansion with a blue roof. FAO Schwartz also featured this house as a Christmas exclusive. Its construction of lithographed paper on wood created a spectacular design with a wondrous concoction of gables, turrets, spindles, and balustrades.

Nearly 100 years later, Barbie moved into her Magical Mansion. Felix Burrichter, co-editor of Barbie Dreamhouse: An Architectural Survey, said the pale walls and fluffy sofa reminded him of the suburban house in the 1987 thriller Fatal Attraction. Snobs might have scoffed, but kids loved ringing the functioning doorbell and phone. While thinking about life in plastic, one of the most striking objects on display is the Kaleidoscope House manufactured by Bozart Toys in 2001. Designed by artist Laurie Simmons and architect Peter Wheelwright, the Kaleidoscope House has sliding transparent walls, an arced-slab partial roof, and modern art pieces. The creators sought to update the conventional dollhouse with subtle touches, like sliding walls that allow for play with color, design, and light. The Kaleidoscope House provides just one example of how the history of dollhouses reveals shifting ideas about domestic life, innovative design, and imaginative play.

Aside from the dollhouses that include Margaret Strong’s childhood dollhouse and elaborate recent  residences marketed to grownups, guests to the exhibit can complete a scavenger hunt for teeny tiny miniatures that replicate everyday life, play with the lights and sounds we’ve added to the 1837 Amsterdam House, and view vintage dollhouse advertisements and photographs. Dollhouses Unveiled will be on display through January 4, 2026.

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Over the course of a week immersed in The Strong’s exceptional archives—including the papers of Carol Kantor, Carol Shaw, Steve Kordek, and Mark Lesser, as well as an expansive collection of Atari design documents and internal memos—I began to see these questions in a new light. The word music appears rarely in these early materials, and when it does, it’s often interchangeable with other terms—sound, tone, jingle, beep, tune, even thump. At times, what we would now call a sound effect is labeled as music in developer notes. These documents aren’t sloppy—they simply come from a time before today’s distinctions between “sound effects” and “music” had crystallized in game design discourse.

What struck me most was how little evidence exists that music was seen as essential to game design in the first place. It’s not just that it was technically difficult to implement; it doesn’t seem to have been a conceptual priority. A handwritten page of notes by Ed Logg—creator of Asteroids and Centipede—lists qualities of “Great Games” but makes no mention of sound at all. Elsewhere, Atari’s internal memos go months at a time without referencing audio. Sound was present, of course, but it was rarely dwelled upon.

More telling still is a 1980s press release for Atari’s 5200 console, which trumpets two “revolutionary features”: a Trak-Ball controller and a Voice Synthesizer module. The release boasts that voices would become “an integral part of game play, not just a sound generator,” promising “the ultimate in video game realism.” It’s hard to miss the implication: the sonic future Atari envisioned was one of simulated speech, not music. Voice, not melody, was framed as the pinnacle of immersion.

This reorients the traditional narrative. Perhaps the Holy Grail of early game sound wasn’t music at all; perhaps it was voice. From that perspective, adding background music to a perilous jungle or the far reaches of outer space might have seemed artificial—or even at odds with the era’s growing emphasis on realism in game design, a trend that became especially clear during my time at The Strong. This raises broader questions. To what extent have our expectations of game audio been shaped by film, a medium in which music gradually came to be understood as essential? And what does it mean when the soundscape of early games resists those same expectations?

I haven’t finished puzzling through these questions. But that’s precisely what made the fellowship so valuable: the time and space to reflect, reframe, and reconsider.

One of the greatest pleasures of my week in this regard was the camaraderie that developed with fellow research fellow Kristin Fitzimmons. Though our projects came from different disciplines, our daily conversations—sometimes at the archives, sometimes over dinner—became a kind of informal salon. We exchanged observations, challenged each other’s assumptions, and helped refine the ideas that were still half-formed in our own heads. In a field like mine, where research is often a solitary pursuit, that kind of dialogue was invigorating. It sharpened my thinking and reminded me that scholarship isn’t just better when shared—it’s shaped by the sharing.

By: Andrew Schartmann, 2025 Valentine-Cosman Research Fellow at The Strong National Museum of Play

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By today’s standards, it can be argued that digital storage is paramount to historical preservation. Paper is fragile and vulnerable to deterioration. Objects can be misplaced. However, I believe there is something incomparable about the physical practice of remembering. Photo albums and scrapbooks become curated art pieces, designed to personally reflect what the author wishes to share in the most intimate setting: a physical space. Holding them in our hands or resting them on our laps, we experience a tactile connection. Handwritten notations become evidence of gesture and intention—a personal disclosure between the viewer and the author. These objects act as time capsules, allowing us—sometimes hundreds of years later—to intimately learn the truths and stories they preserve, which might otherwise be lost to time.

As a recently appointed collections specialist at The Strong, I’ve been fortunate to familiarize myself with our vast collection of photographs, albums, and scrapbooks. Recently, while browsing the stacks in one of our storage areas, I happened upon an old album quite literally bursting at the seams. This mammoth book sat on its back, pages arched like a discarded accordion. Its size alone made it difficult to ignore. Picking up the book, I felt its weight press against my wrists and forearms—a testament to the extensive collection of memories pasted between its pages.

The most obvious place to begin was the cover. The face is wrapped in warm brown fabric with two large red leather corners. I decipher “Shipment Ledger” embossed across the center, though the title is partially obscured by a torn paper sticker. The inscription on the sticker reads, “The Glynns doings July 1934 to —.” The interior cover bears an additional label stating, “Property of Alfred M. Glynn, Worcester, Mass.”

I took this information on a brief side quest to our archive and found that the scrapbook was donated by the family in 1986. Along with the scrapbook were other loose photographs and memorabilia, which currently reside in our museum archive. I learned that Alfred Glynn—also referred to as “Al”—and Maxine Glynn were a married couple who moved to Worcester in the early 1930s. Al was a humble store manager, and Maxine was a part-time teacher and housewife. Though the book states it is the property of Alfred, it’s uncertain whether he alone maintained it.

Page one is modest. The pages are an aged yellow hue, reflecting their near century of existence, but they have remained in relatively good condition. Since the Glynns chose a ledger over a traditional album, the backdrop for these memories includes faded blue and pink lines, along with printed header text. Each page is stamped with a number in the top right corner.

Adhered to page one are three pieces of folded paper: a summer school confirmation letter from July 1934, a vocational school certificate, and a paper driver’s license from 1933. Next to the license, a Glynn inscribed, “Still hanging on!”

Turning the page, the spread reveals a much more playful arrangement. Pasted directly onto the page are several envelopes. Inside one envelope is a colorful house illustration in pink and blue. At the bottom of the page is an invitation to the Worcester County Framingham Club’s “Hallowe’en Social,” dated October 27th, 1934.

On the right-hand page of the spread is a folded piece of paper, pasted on one side. I fold down the free half to reveal a request for used clothing articles—likely for a sale intended to raise money or provide clothing to the less fortunate. Two related newspaper articles are pasted nearby, accompanied by a handwritten comment: “Oh my! Thanks, Jo, for the gloves.” Below that is a handbill for a production of The Pursuit of Happiness, along with two pink ticket stubs dated November 19th, 1934.

Pages four and five provide more notations and offer additional context for the time period. A memento from a “Girls Reserve Dance” appears alongside a ticket listing a 35-cent admission. The author notes, “We chaperoned the dance—and then!” next to two bridge “cards” from the noted “Warners’ Xmas Bridge.” These bridge cards served as official tally sheets. One card refers to “Fritz,” and the other to “Mike.” Based on what’s printed on the cards, it appears there were multiple tables with varying names. Each person was assigned to a table and a partner, and scores were then jotted down next to the appropriate line.

Flipping through to page seven, it becomes abundantly clear that the Glynns really enjoyed playing bridge. The page is decorated with various bridge scorecards in a variety of designs and colors, each claimed by different Glynn family members. Many feature colorful tassels with fraying edges.

On page 18, I find a ticket and booklet for a senior prom semi-formal dance dated May 24th, 1935—marking the passage of a year across these 18 pages. The pasted booklet still has a pencil on a string attached, hanging freely from the binding. The author, who may be Maxine, jests, “Al certainly had trouble with his attire!” in a handwritten comment. Below, I see the first signs of travel for the Glynns: a postcard from Brandon, Vermont, a newspaper clipping of Lake Champlain, and a note reading, “Trips to Middlebury 1935.”

For the first time, photographs appear on page 19—seven small black-and-white prints, each about three and a half inches wide. A few images show three adults on a boat named Virginia, followed by landscape photographs of boats and islands. The author contextualizes the images at the bottom of the page: “Anniversary Weekend June 1935. Warners – Glynns. West Bath, Maine.”

These photographs continue on the following page in two-by-eight columns. More portraits appear by the water, alongside a large wooden ship and a car. The subjects in the portraits, along with the automobile, help create a more vivid visual context for the time period.

Though I could have spent the entirety of my day flipping through these pages, there was unfortunately more work to be done. For now, I’ll imagine it’s 1938. Alfred Glynn is sitting at his desk in Worcester, Massachusetts. In front of him is a large ledger—300 pages awaiting a long and meticulous chronology of Glynn family history. That object will become an artifact, preserved for 87 years and counting. That, my friends, is the glory of physical media

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As CEO of OrangeOnions, I’ve built my career as part of a team designing toys that bring comfort, creativity, and connection across generations. But long before patents, plush characters, and partnerships, it all began with one beloved object: My blankie.

For nearly 50 years, my blankie traveled with me—from childhood bedrooms to red-eye flights, through family milestones and global meetings. It wasn’t just my comfort—it was my cape, my tent, my magic carpet. And recently, I made the bittersweet decision to donate it to The Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, NY, where its story continues as part of a museum dedicated to the meaning of play.

The Red Wagon That Changed Everything

• A flying carpet
• A fort roof
• A ghost costume
• A cloak of invisibility
• And always, a source of comfort

It wasn’t just fabric. It was a blank canvas for imagination.

I was six years old. We were riding home after a joyful Passover celebration, my dad pulling my brother and me in our bright red Radio Flyer wagon, our blankies bundled on our laps. At some point, mine slipped out. It was run over in the street. I was devastated—until the next morning, when I picked it up, slipped my head through the hole, and transformed it into a superhero cape. From that day on, my blankie became whatever I needed it to be:

A Podcast, an Email, and a New Journey

Years later, I listened to an episode of The Playground Podcast, hosted by Christopher Byrne and the late Richard Gottlieb, both legends of the toy industry, where Christopher Bensch, VP of Collections at The Strong, shared that the museum had never acquired a real childhood blankie—despite its emotional legacy. That stuck with me. Three years later, I reached out to him:

“Chris, I’ve been contemplating this for a while, and now—three years since your podcast appearance—I’ve decided. I’m offering to donate my favorite childhood blankie to The Strong. It’s been my companion through every bedtime story, every journey, every dream.”

His response was warm and affirming:

“Reading your email this afternoon brought laughter and delight—the power of your blankie and its history made vividly present. You may have even given me the subject for an upcoming blog.”

“Wait… You’re Giving That Away?”—My Kids React

When I told my kids, their reaction was a mix of disbelief, affection, and bewilderment.

“You’re giving that away? To a museum? Who would even want your old, ripped-up blankie?”

I laughed, but deep down I knew: it wasn’t about the appearance—it was about the story. The joy. The transformation. That blankie was my sidekick, my safe place, and my creative launchpad. The chance to embarrass them was just the icing on the cake.

A Visit to The Strong I’ll Never Forget

When I arrived to deliver my blankie, I was welcomed by Christopher Bensch, who gave me and my son an unforgettable private tour of the museum’s vault. Inside were treasures from across toy history—prototype action figures, classic arcade machines, vintage dolls, and iconic board games.

But what stood out most was Chris’s storytelling. He didn’t just show us objects—he shared their emotional and cultural meaning. His warmth, insight, and passion left a lasting impression. I’ve spent decades in this industry, and I can say without hesitation: he’s one of the most fascinating people I’ve ever met.

Afterward, my son and I spent hours exploring the museum. We laughed, built, raced, played—and then made our way to Hasbro Game Park, where we completely lost track of time. From the bright, bold play structures to the larger-than-life Hasbro characters we’ve long admired, it was a celebration of childhood brought to life. We climbed, spun, slid, and marveled at how the lines between toy and imagination could disappear so joyfully. It was, without question, one of the highlights of our visit.

The Psychology of Play, and a Quote That Stuck with Me

In one exhibit hall, I paused to read a quote from a museum sign:

“There are many ways of playing, and every time we pursue one, we experience six basic psychological elements of play: anticipation, surprise, pleasure, understanding, strength, and poise.”

That blankie gave me every single one of those. And nearby, a quote from Fred Rogers stopped me in my tracks:

“When children pretend, they’re using their imaginations to move beyond the bounds of reality. A stick can be a magic wand. A sock can be a puppet. A small child can be a superhero.”

That small child was me. And thanks to that blankie, I believed I could be anything.

How It Inspired OrangeOnions

That belief is what led me to found OrangeOnions—a toy company built on the same spirit of creative transformation, emotional safety, and storytelling. Our first product lines were born from that same desire to combine comfort and character, just like my blankie once did.

• Blankie Besties are part plush, part blanket, and all heart—companions that provide emotional reassurance and spark imagination.
• Our patented Snugible are wearable plush friends that offer warmth, security, and a bit of whimsy—beloved by toddlers, seniors, and especially kidults, the growing audience of adults who embrace play for comfort and joy.

Through partnerships with legacy brands like Sesame Street, Hasbro, NASA, NASCAR, NCAA, and Monopoly, we create products that don’t just entertain—they connect. Across generations. Across cultures. Across memories.

The Most Rewarding Part

The most rewarding part of my job? It’s not the innovation or the retail milestones. It’s the moments when I see children truly enjoying the toys we’ve created—their faces lighting up, their hands gripping a character they instantly love. Many of those moments are captured in photos that grace the walls of our offices—reminders that our work has meaning. But nothing compares to seeing my own children and grandchildren find joy in the very products that were born from my blankie’s legacy. Watching them snuggle a Snugible, or imagine wild stories with a Blankie Bestie, brings it all full circle.

A Legacy of Play

Donating my blankie wasn’t saying goodbye—it was passing something forward. It was an invitation for others to dream, to play, and to believe in the quiet magic of ordinary things.

I grew up in a loving, warm home where imagination was encouraged, storytelling was second nature, and my blankie was as much a part of my family as any toy or tradition. That nurturing environment shaped who I became—and taught me that play isn’t just about fun. It’s about connection, creativity, and courage. To children building forts in the living room, to parents creating safe spaces for wonder, to grandparents reliving childhood through their grandchildren: never underestimate the power of play.

A torn blanket became my superhero cape. That cape inspired a company. That company became my life’s work. And through it all, I’ve learned that play has no expiration date. It transcends age, era, and background. It teaches us who we are—and who we can become.

This journey has been the joy of a lifetime. And my hope is that my blankie, now resting at The Strong, will continue to spark dreams, comfort hearts, and remind people of every generation: sometimes, the most powerful things in life begin with play. It all began with a blanket.

The post Why I Donated My Blankie to The Strong Museum of Play: From a Childhood Cape to a Legacy of Imagination appeared first on The Strong National Museum of Play.

It’s back-to-school time, so this is a reminder to the parents and guardians out there to make sure your students are all stocked up on class supplies—pencils, notebooks, folders, buzzers, and bells. Wait, buzzers and bells?

That’s right. Game shows have gone back to school. In 2024, National Archives of Game Show History co-founder Bob Boden and longtime Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! executive producer Harry Friedman established a curriculum of academic courses about game shows for California State University, Los Angeles (Cal State LA).

Friedman explains, “I was at a TV Academy Foundation conference about three years ago. I was randomly seated next to Dr. Dina Ibrahim, who was heading up Cal State University’s entertainment alliance. We talked and she seemed intrigued by the work I did. We began discussing game shows, and how ubiquitous they are, and the effect they’ve had on pop culture.”

Friedman, half-jokingly, told Dr. Ibrahim, “I think you should have a course about game shows, how to produce them, and how to develop them.”

To Friedman’s surprise, she liked the idea. Dr. Kristiina Hackel, the head of the Department of TV, Film and Media Studies at Cal State LA, asked Friedman to draft a proposal for coursework. Friedman called Bob Boden and asked if he could help brainstorm some ideas for the course.

Friedman says, “90 minutes later, Bob [sent] me a fully formed 13-week production course schedule. It turned out that this was something that Bob had already tried to create for UCLA, and they didn’t move forward with it. We modified maybe 10 percent of Bob’s original idea, just because the entertainment business had changed enough in that time that the class had to reflect those changes, but everything we needed was already there.”

Students who are interested can take three classes over a series of semesters. They begin with a class called “Get in the Game,” an introduction to game and reality competition shows. The second semester is called “The Game Plan,” focusing on how to develop game show formats and sell them to production companies, networks, and media platforms. The third semester, “Hands on Buzzers,” explores the ins and outs of how to produce a game show.

The professors are game show production veterans Stuart Krasnow, Shannon Perry, Sean Loughlin, and Joey Ortega. Ortega taught high school for three years prior to going into game show production, and that academic background was partly why he was asked to help teach these courses.

Ortega says, “Cal State LA is interesting because there’s such a mix of students. Some are later-in-life students who want to change careers, some are 22 and just about to step in the real world. For the game show curriculum specifically, a lot of our students are media majors; film and television production majors. Many of them hadn’t thought of game shows as a pathway to a career. They came here thinking of a media career in terms of ‘filmmaking’ and the game show classes have taught them that there’s this other route that they can take.”

At a time when the media landscape is in flux, and the way people consume entertainment has changed so drastically in only a single generation, Ortega has been fascinated by learning about what his students already know, and delighted by the opportunity to expand their horizons.

“A lot of my students tend to come into the class knowing Deal or No Deal, Wipeout, and Family Feud. These are the shows that they’ve grown up with. It’s so much fun to introduce them to classic games and get their reactions. I love showing my students Pyramid, particularly the Winner’s Circle round. You can see it in their faces—they are locked in when they see the Winner’s Circle; that game has their full attention every time.”

Harry Friedman says, “I observed classes a couple of times and was blown away. Not just by what the students were learning, but by their creativity, their teamwork, and their work ethic. There were so many transferrable skills being taught in these game show classes that they will be able to take with them no matter what they may end up doing.”

The game show curriculum is still quite new but has already shown the potential for creating careers and impacting the genre. In several weeks, a pilot will be recorded for a new game show format that was developed by a student in the Cal State LA classes.

Friedman explains, “Everybody in the class will be part of the team making the pilot. There will be schedules, deadlines, assigned roles and duties, budgets. Everything involved in making a pilot, and it’s going to involve these students.”

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The author of this article majored in radio & television with a focus on journalism because it was the closest thing available to a game show curriculum. The author seethes with envy at a new generation of college students who have the chance to watch Let’s Make a Deal and The Price is Right because they’re doing homework.

The post Next Game Show Creators appeared first on The Strong National Museum of Play.

Then, in 1996, an unprecedented hot-pink box appeared in the software aisle: Barbie Fashion Designer. Unabashedly feminine, the game stuck out from its peers not only for its aesthetics, but for its dress-up gameplay. It was one of the first games designed specifically for girls. Barbie Fashion Designer was an instant sensation and commercial success for Mattel, and alongside Sega’s Cosmopolitan Virtual Makeover, these two games ushered in a new wave of games designed for girls. Game studios like Purple Moon responded to this burgeoning market by developing these “girl games,” characterized by gameplay involving dress-up and fashion, domesticity, dating, and shopping, all wrapped up in “pinkified” Barbie-inspired aesthetics.

Just as girl games became immediately popular, so too did they immediately generate controversies. Some feminists were concerned by the potentially sexist content of girl games, arguing that their gameplay perpetuated a narrow ideal of femininity centered around fashion, appearances, and relationships with men. Those on the other side of the debate claimed that playing girl games was actively participating in female culture and thus constituted an act of feminist resistance. In either case, girl games remain popular today, with recent titles like Infinity Nikki (2024) and Dress to Impress (2024) garnering millions of dedicated players. The last 30 years have proven that girl games (and the debates around them) are here to stay.

Most conversations about girl games place their emergence as a genre in the mid-90s with the release of Barbie Fashion Designer and Cosmopolitan Virtual Makeover. But digital games don’t just spring into existence—they are often rooted in an analog past. Girl games are no exception. As a longtime lover of girl games, I wanted to discover if there were any common threads between analog girl games and their video game descendants.

With The Strong’s generous support, I made the journey from Montana to New York to explore the museum’s vast collection of 19^th– and 20^th-century board games. My research goals were twofold. First, I hoped to contribute historical context for modern girl games and deepen our collective understanding of this significant, enduring genre. Second, as a game designer myself, I wanted to use my findings to offer informed suggestions to other designers working within the genre, so that we can continue to make girl games without perpetuating sexist ideals. My delightful weeks at the museum consisted of playing all manner of board games featuring women or girls. In addition, the knowledgeable staff at The Strong gave me the excellent suggestion of exploring the museum’s collection of trade catalogs, helping me uncover how these games were marketed during the period I was studying.

Before the 1960s, there were very few games that included depictions of women and girls; this was also true of men and boys. In fact, most games designed and sold from the mid-19th to mid-20th centuries were traditional—like Dominoes, Checkers, Crokinole, Parcheesi, and various card games—which tend to be abstract in nature. Far from being gendered, these games were touted as appealing to all ages and sexes. The 1873 Milton Bradley catalog, for example, depicts both men and women playing games in parlors. A Sears catalog from 1936 describes a Carrom board as offering “endless amusement for the whole family from little sister to grandfather.” For nearly a hundred years, traditional games dominated the market in America, purchased by middle-class families to play in parlors to entertain guests or pass the time.

The few board games that did depict women during this era, like The Coquette and Her Suitors (1858), The Game of Captive Princess (1875), and Witzi Witch the Fortune Teller (1928) didn’t follow the conventions of the modern girl game genre. Notably, these board games don’t let you roleplay as women; rather, the woman serves as the player’s reward for winning. For example, both Coquette and Captive Princess feature male-only playing pieces, and players must race opponents to the finish line to win the maiden’s hand in marriage. This framing evokes the “damsel in distress” trope common to many early video games—but not girl games. Furthermore, the late 19^th– and early 20^th-century games I surveyed don’t feature the classic pink aesthetics typical of the girl game genre, nor do they include gameplay centered around fashion, beauty, or shopping. While most games featuring women from this period did include game mechanics and themes relating to marriage and courtship—a staple of modern girl games—the presentation of these themes and the lack of other important elements indicate that these early games don’t belong to the girl game genre.

By the 1960s, however, the first obviously recognizable tabletop girl games entered the market. This marks an important shift in the history of analog girl games. While gender-neutral, family-oriented games were still designed and produced, games made specifically for girls appear now, advertised as “For Girls Only.” One example is Miss Popularity Game (1961) where girls compete against one another in a popularity contest to win a bright pink trophy; “The game that all girls love to play!” emblazons the box. The rules are straightforward: draw a card and see what happens. Cards like “Most Attractive Teen” and “Pretty Legs” score girls popularity points. Breaking up with their boyfriend (“Break Up”) and neglecting their personal appearance (“Careless”) loses them points. Drawing “Wardrobe!” and gaining a full closet awards 100 popularity points, the highest possible in the game. With a girly pink aesthetic, a strong focus on appearance and fashion, and themes related to dating and marriage, Miss Popularity Games serves as a quintessential “girl game” despite predating Barbie Fashion Designer by 35 years.

Miss Popularity Game is only one example among many. From 1960 to the mid-1990s, all board games branded as “For Girls Only” use the same pop-pink aesthetics characteristic of girl games today. Again, like modern girl games, half of these earlier board games contain themes or gameplay related to marriage and dating. For example, the entire premise of The Bride Game (1972) is planning the perfect wedding; in multiple others, getting a steady boyfriend is required to win the game. Most strikingly, every single board game analyzed from this 30-year period drew attention to the player’s appearance, discussing her wardrobe, body type, hair, makeup, and attractiveness.

Focusing on the player’s appearance is necessary for dress-up and fashion games. However, many of these board games went a step further, punishing players for not being pretty enough, not doing their makeup well enough, or not being able to afford to go to the salon. In Girl Talk (1988), players must put a large red “zit sticker” on their face, intended to shame her if she fails. In What Shall I Be? The Exciting Game of Career Girls (1966; 1972), drawing a “personality card” describing the player as overweight means that she is unfit for pursuing a career as an airline hostess or ballet dancer. Many of these early girl games do present a narrow ideal of femininity, and girls learn they must be young, thin, white, attractive, and at least middle-class to “win.” This framing is tragic; no game designer should include mechanics that punish or shame players for failing to meet unrealistic beauty standards. No more zit stickers, please!

Of course, no genre of game is free from problematic titles. Despite the controversies, girl games tapped into experiences girls and women could relate to. Girl games established a new kind of engaging gameplay, which has maintained player interest for 75 years and counting. The aesthetics of girl games are eye-catching and vibrant; dressing up is a form of self-expression and engages the player’s creativity; relationships are important to our lives and negotiating them in game spaces is fun, allowing us to experiment safely. It’s not that we need to rid ourselves of girl games at all—in fact, I think we need more girl games, ones that broaden our understanding of what femininity is, and who it’s for. Rather than depicting femininity as something you can “win” and “lose,” girl games should give players a safe space to experiment with what gender means to them. Rather than being marketed only to girls, everyone should get the chance to dress up, play with romance, and wear whatever they want—including boys. I hope the girl games of the future invite everyone to play with femininity.

Written by, Ashley Rezvani, 2025 Valentine-Cosman Research Fellow at The Strong National Museum of Play

The post From Girl Talk to Girl Games: The Analog History of Games for Girls appeared first on The Strong National Museum of Play.

For those who are not familiar with CCGs, this is a genre of card games that emerged in the early 1990s, and encompasses games that are also called trading card games, customizable card games, expandable card games, among others. The general idea behind CCGs is that cards that are used to play the game can also be treated as collectible objects. This is achieved primarily through the use of randomized card distribution in booster packs, similar to how baseball cards are sold. Examples of CCGs you might be familiar with include the Pokémon Trading Card Game and digital games such as Hearthstone.

At the museum’s Brian Sutton-Smith Library and Archive of Play, I found a wealth of material that directly addressed many of my research questions about the early days of the CCG genre. While the creation and growth of the first CCG, Magic: The Gathering, is well-documented, the months and years after the release of Magic, which saw the rapid growth of the CCG market and industry, has largely remained forgotten. Since the larger goal of my research is to look at the CCG genre broadly, its complete history was something that I felt needed to be recovered.

The first things that I sought out at the library were periodicals focused primarily on collectible card games, namely magazines such as The Duelist, Scrye, Conjure, and Inquest. These publications grew out of the CCG boom in the early- to mid-1990s, but eventually disappeared in the 2000s as access to the Internet became more widespread. The Strong has an extensive holding of these publications, as well as foreign language magazines and even smaller publications such as zines. I also found a wealth of trade catalogs and flyers sent out by CCG publishers to distributors and game stores among the library’s holdings. 

The other category of material I looked at were archival documents from Mayfair Games, the game publishing company founded by Darwin Bromley. My particular interest in the Mayfair Games archive has to do with the firm’s role as the designer and publisher of SimCity: The Card Game, a CCG adaptation of the very popular computer game created by Will Wright, which was released in 1994. 

From examining these materials, here are some of the things that I’ve found that relate directly to my research. The first was the immediate impact on the gaming industry of the 1993 release of the first CCG, Magic: The Gathering. While I have said that the history of the game has been written about, this history is mostly told from the perspective of the publisher and game designer. For players, as well as other game designers and publishers, the weeks and months after the release of Magic were hectic. 

Within the Mayfair Games archive, I found printouts of message board posts about Magic from the time. These posts range from reviews of the game, reports from frustrated players about the scarcity of the game in local stores, and posts about the possible financial value of the cards. I also found message board posts from game designers, trying to understand how the game was made in the first place, and how the cards were being distributed randomly.

In the publications that I looked at, that same excitement is palpable in the letters sent in by players. Players wrote in about new or powerful cards they managed to find in packs, or unexpected card interactions that won them a game, or trades they’ve made to get cards they wanted. 

One magazine even had a section where game store owners from across the U.S. and Canada wrote in to report about the sales and activity around CCGs. A common thread in these game store owners’ early reports were the huge demand for the game and the very limited supply. Later, when other CCGs began coming out and Magic’s supply had risen to the point that it could fill the demand, the tone of these reports shifted to that of unsold boxes, accompanied by doubt and worry about the future of the market for these games.

The other thing that I found of real import to my research is an insider’s view of how one game company—in this case Mayfair Games—tried to figure out the CCG genre and market. As I mentioned, Mayfair Games published SimCity: The Card Game in 1995 but, as it turns out, they had worked on many other CCGs in the mid-1990s. The company tried to create CCGs based on the Parker Brothers card game Touring, the magazine National Geographic, and their own role-playing game DC Comics Heroes, based on the popular comic book IP.

However, of these many CCGs, Mayfair ended up producing only two, the first of which was SimCity. Mayfair Games had acquired the license to create a card game based on the video game in 1993. Mayfair Games believed that the SimCity CCG would be the game that would appeal, not just to fantasy and science fiction gamers, but to the mass audiences, as well. 

The Mayfair Games archive presents the history of the game’s development from its inception to its production, and finally its release and reception. One particularly interesting thing to find in the archive was the inclusion of cities in my home county, the Philippines, on the list of cities the game would have featured if it had achieved the massive success Mayfair Games had hoped it would be. The archival material also outlined the difficulties of producing and releasing the game. This included delays in design and in printing, as well as issues with how stores were allocating shelf space for the game. 

The other CCG Mayfair Games produced was called Fantasy Adventures and was released in 1996. Based on a card game the company had published in the 1980s called Encounters, Fantasy Adventures drew heavily from the fantasy genre like Magic and Spellfire, a CCG-based on the seminal tabletop roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons. 

Unlike other CCGs of the time, which utilized original artwork from fantasy artists, Mayfair Games went to seasoned fantasy artists and bought second-rights to their artwork, many of which either appeared in magazines or graced book covers. This was one of the primary selling points of the game—that top-notch artists had created the art on the cards—because the company believed that the success of CCGs could be traced to the artwork on the cards. 

The other thing of note about Fantasy Adventure was that, even as the first edition of the game was being developed, Mayfair Games had already begun making deals with video game companies and publishers to create tie-ins. 

The biggest of these tie-ins was a set of cards featuring the world of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series, which would be playable with the base game. Jordan himself would be involved in the development of this card set. The Mayfair Games archives includes letters from Jordan himself providing guidance and giving approvals for cards and the artwork that would appear in the cards. The company even tapped into Jordan’s massive fanbase to try and get the flavor of the cards right, by asking them to playtest the cards. Unfortunately, Fantasy Adventures was just one of more than 70 CCGs released in 1996 and, like all of them, the game soon went out of print.

While the study of successful CCGs such as Magic and Pokémon can tell us about what makes the game genre appealing to players and collectors alike, examining the largely forgotten games in the early days of the genre tell us about how the gaming and collectible industries adapted to the emergence of the CCG.  

Written by, Francis Paolo Quina, 2025 Valentine-Cosman Research Fellow at The Strong National Museum of Play.

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