The Strong National Museum of Play (New York, USA)

The Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York, is a collections-based history museum that treats play as a subject worthy of preservation, exhibition, and scholarly research. Its holdings extend from dolls, toys, puzzles, and tabletop games to electronic games, company records, design documents, books, and personal papers. At the same time, much of the public museum is deliberately interactive, placing historical objects and interpretation alongside spaces where children and adults can play. ^[Ref-2]

A Museum That Treats Play as Historical Evidence

The Strong describes itself as the only collections-based museum devoted solely to play. That institutional purpose shapes what it collects: not just celebrated commercial toys, but ordinary objects and records that document how people have spent leisure time, learned rules, adopted new technologies, invented fictional roles, and played across different stages of life.

This distinction matters because The Strong is not simply a children’s activity center with historic objects added to the galleries. It maintains museum collections, archival repositories, a research library, conservation facilities, scholarly programs, and specialized collecting initiatives. Interactive exhibits form the public-facing side of a much larger preservation and research operation.

The current collection contains more than 510,000 items. Objects are stored under controlled temperature and humidity conditions, examined before entering storage, documented, and treated when conservation is required. Play wear is not automatically erased: damage, modification, and evidence of use can form part of an object’s history. ^[Ref-3]

From Margaret Woodbury Strong’s Collections to a Museum of Play

The museum developed from the collections and estate of Margaret Woodbury Strong, a Rochester collector with a particular interest in dolls, toys, and everyday objects. She founded the Margaret Woodbury Strong Museum of Fascination in 1968 and left her estate to support the institution when she died the following year.

1. 1968: Margaret Woodbury Strong established the Margaret Woodbury Strong Museum of Fascination.
2. 1982: Thirteen years after Strong’s death, the museum opened in a purpose-built 156,000-square-foot building on a 13.5-acre site in downtown Rochester.
3. 1997: A glass atrium entrance was added, incorporating an operating 1918 carousel and a 1950s diner.
4. 2002: The museum acquired the National Toy Hall of Fame, which had originated in Salem, Oregon.
5. 2004–2006: Major additions nearly doubled the museum’s footprint to 285,000 square feet as its mission became more tightly centered on play.
6. 2008–2009: The museum began publishing the American Journal of Play, established the International Center for the History of Electronic Games, and renamed its research repository the Brian Sutton-Smith Library & Archives of Play.
7. 2015: The World Video Game Hall of Fame was established.
8. 2023: A new 90,000-square-foot expansion opened with additional electronic-game galleries, collections facilities, visitor spaces, and an outdoor game park.

Those changes altered both the scale and the subject of the institution. Early interpretations used Strong’s mass-produced objects to examine industrialization and everyday life. By the early 2000s, toys, games, dolls, and other evidence of play had become the museum’s defining subject rather than one part of a broader material-culture collection. ^[Ref-4]

More Than 510,000 Objects Documenting How People Play

The Strong’s collecting scope is wider than a display of famous branded toys. The museum documents play by children and adults and accepts that play can include games, hobbies, leisure activities, imaginative objects, physical equipment, and digital experiences. Material from recent decades can therefore enter the collection alongside objects from much earlier periods.

Only part of this material can be displayed at any one time. The museum’s online collections database makes tens of thousands of records accessible remotely, while additional objects remain available for exhibition, study, or appointment-based research rather than permanent public display.

Video Games Preserved as Software, Hardware, Design, and Business History

Electronic games form one of The Strong’s most developed specialist collecting areas. The International Center for the History of Electronic Games, established in 2009, holds more than 60,000 artifacts and hundreds of thousands of archival materials related to video games and other electronic forms of play.

The holdings include games and the machines or platforms used to play them, but preservation does not stop with finished software. Packaging, advertising, publications, game-related products, corporate records, source materials, design documents, and personal papers help reconstruct how electronic games were conceived and produced.

• Designer and developer records: The collections include papers associated with figures such as Ralph Baer, Bill Budge, Jerry Lawson, Jordan Mechner, Carol Shaw, and Ken and Roberta Williams.
• Company archives: Business holdings document firms including Atari, Bally, Brøderbund, Her Interactive, MECC, Midway, Sierra, and Williams.
• Digital preservation: The museum maintains dedicated laboratories for preserving aging digital files, obsolete media, arcade equipment, pinball machines, console software, and other forms of digital culture.

This combination of playable history, physical artifacts, software, and business documentation makes the electronic-game collection useful for questions that cannot be answered from game cartridges or cabinets alone. A researcher can examine development decisions, advertising, correspondence, technical records, and the finished game within the same institution. ^[Ref-5]

Two Halls of Fame Embedded in Larger Collections

The Strong houses both the National Toy Hall of Fame and the World Video Game Hall of Fame. They are public recognition programs, but each sits within a museum that also preserves historical examples and related documentary material.

National Toy Hall of Fame

The National Toy Hall of Fame began in 1998 at A. C. Gilbert’s Discovery Village in Salem, Oregon. The Strong acquired it in 2002 and moved it to Rochester. Toys are considered using criteria tied to recognition, longevity, discovery through play, and innovation; the museum displays Hall of Fame material within its Toy Halls of Fame exhibit. ^[Ref-6]

World Video Game Hall of Fame

Established by The Strong in 2015, the World Video Game Hall of Fame considers arcade, console, computer, handheld, and mobile games. Its criteria examine recognition, sustained popularity, geographical reach, and influence on game design, entertainment, or wider culture. The Hall of Fame is housed within the ESL Digital Worlds: High Score exhibit. ^[Ref-7]

Interactive Galleries Use Play as the Method of Interpretation

More than 150,000 square feet of exhibit space gives The Strong a different public character from a museum where most encounters take place through display cases. Many galleries combine artifacts with role-playing, physical activity, reading, digital interaction, experimentation, or games.

• Toy Halls of Fame: Historic and familiar toys are presented beside interactive installations and material associated with the National Toy Hall of Fame and toy-industry history.
• Play Pals: Dolls, action figures, toy soldiers, and plush animals are used to trace several centuries of American play while role-playing stations let visitors engage with the themes directly.
• Wegmans Super Kids Market: A child-scale market environment uses shopping, food preparation, sorting, counting, and make-believe work as forms of dramatic play.
• Reading Adventureland: Children’s literature is translated into physical environments where books, objects, reading, and imaginative play intersect.
• ESL Digital Worlds: Electronic-game galleries examine video game history and place the World Video Game Hall of Fame within an interactive digital setting.
• Dancing Wings Butterfly Garden: The museum also operates a year-round indoor butterfly garden, adding living specimens and environmental observation to a site otherwise centered on material and interactive play culture.

The 2023 expansion added new electronic-game environments, the Play Lab, additional collections and preservation space, and Hasbro Game Park outdoors. The 90,000-square-foot addition was part of a larger redevelopment around the museum known as the Neighborhood of Play. ^[Ref-8]

The Brian Sutton-Smith Library and Archives Extend the Museum Beyond Its Galleries

The Brian Sutton-Smith Library & Archives of Play is a research repository devoted to the intellectual, social, and cultural history of play. Its approximately 264,000-volume research library includes scholarly books, journals, periodicals, trade catalogs, children’s books, comic books, and other published material, while the archives preserve manuscripts, correspondence, business files, personal papers, design records, and related unpublished sources.

The repository is named for play scholar Brian Sutton-Smith and holds his personal library and papers. Other collections support research into toys, tabletop games, electronic games, early childhood education, game design, business history, advertising, and the work of individual creators.

Using the Collections for Research

The Strong separates research material into three broad categories rather than treating every holding as a single collection system:

• Library materials: Published works such as books, magazines, journals, zines, trade catalogs, and marketing kits.
• Archival collections: Unpublished sources such as correspondence, manuscripts, design drawings, research data, corporate files, and personal papers.
• Museum objects: Physical items including dolls, toys, puzzles, board games, video games, arcade equipment, and pinball machines.

Researchers can search portions of these holdings online, including object records, library catalogs, archival finding aids, digitized trade catalogs, and selected digital collections. On-site access is available to scholars, students, collectors, and other researchers by appointment; the museum requests approximately two weeks’ notice so staff can identify and prepare relevant materials. ^[Ref-9]

Visiting The Strong in Downtown Rochester

The museum operates daily. Regular hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with extended opening until 8 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. The Butterfly Garden and Skyline Climb maintain their own operating schedules, so their hours should not be assumed to match the main museum throughout the day.

• Tickets: One-day admission is currently listed from $25, while children younger than two do not require a ticket. Two-day tickets and reduced Friday-evening admission are also offered.
• Child supervision: Visitors age 15 and younger must be accompanied by an adult age 16 or older while inside the museum.
• Garage parking: The museum operates a garage entered from Savannah Street. Museum-guest parking is currently listed at $7 per vehicle, with accessible spaces on levels one, two, and three.
• Regional transit: Rochester’s Regional Transit Service has stops within walking distance of the museum.

Because admission rates, attraction schedules, and parking charges can change, the museum’s current ticket and visit pages are the appropriate source for final trip planning.

Accessibility and Sensory Resources

Public access extends beyond step-free entry. Most exhibit areas can accommodate wheelchairs, scooters, strollers, and walkers; the museum has three elevators serving the second floor and offers a limited number of complimentary wheelchairs on a first-come basis.

For visitors who benefit from a lower-sensory environment, The Strong provides Guest Rest spaces, noise-cancelling headphones, social stories, and selected sensory-friendly programming. Written and audio self-guided material is available through the museum’s mobile guide, while ASL interpreting and certain additional accommodations can be requested in advance. ^[Ref-10]

The result is an institution serving several audiences at once: families can use interactive galleries as places for active play, while historians, students, collectors, game researchers, and designers can work with objects and documentary records that are not ordinarily visible on the exhibition floor. The Strong’s defining role comes from keeping those two activities—playing with interpretation and preserving evidence about play—within the same museum.