At a loss for what to write next, John Steinbeck embarked on a tour of the country in 1960, accompanied by his standard poodle, Charley. The trip resulted in an extended meditation about the state of American life called Travels with Charley. Beyond the travelogue and observations that the book offers, Steinbeck shares numerous comments about his canine travel companion. The great novelist thought Charley was smarter than he was, in some respects. And when he looked into Charley’s eyes, […]
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Building an Empire
Donald Trump never knew how close he came to competing with me-and not because I wanted to play a boss on reality TV. No, the truth is that, as a kid, I dreamed of making it big in the world of high-profile architecture and real estate development. If things had worked out differently, I might have ended up going toe-to-toe with “The Donald” instead of becoming a museum curator. But show me a Kenner Girder and Panel construction set, and […]
Color Us Happy!
Do you remember coloring pictures when you were a child? Does that unforgettable crayon aroma send you back in time? Coloring is one of the easiest and most economical ways for a child to discover his or her creative spark-and nearly everyone does it!
I vividly recall my childhood coloring experiences. I especially remember the day I watched my neighbor Laurie as she worked on her coloring book. First she would carefully and heavily outline a color area. Then she’d use […]
Bicycle Time Machines
You mark time when you ride a bike. Your mind drifts. It’s the rhythm, probably, the lulling tempo. My mind drifts as I ride the paved path along the blue Niagara River. By late summer I’ve put another fifteen hundred miles on the tires. Biking has always been play to me and my autobiography is composed partly in a succession of bicycles.
My first bike was an ochre-colored machine with twenty-inch balloon tires and tan striping on the fenders. The color […]
Are You a Gamer?
Recently while visiting a friend, we began talking about Nintendo Wii. She noted that she had not purchased any video games for her six-year-old son yet and wasn’t sure if she wanted to. There was nothing unusual about this-many parents debate about when, or if, to buy video-game systems for their kids. What struck me as I looked around the room, however, was that her son already had a lot of electronic games-on a nearby shelf was a child’s play […]
So Many Careers, So Little Time
Since March marks both Women’s History Month and Barbie’s official 50th birthday, it seemed like the perfect time to combine the two and talk about Barbie’s many careers.
It’s a common assumption among people who follow societal trends that the average person has about five career changes in a lifetime. Barbie, however, definitely skews the data. Although she was originally designed and marketed as a teenage fashion model, Barbie has moved far beyond the catwalk. In the wake of the women’s movement of the 1960s and 1970s, Mattel began […]
Out of the Wild Blue Yonder
For curators at the museum, some days feel just like Christmas.One day—out of the blue, appropriately—I received a phone call about a local collector with an extensive collection of toy airplanes and related playthings. Just the kind of thing that makes a curator’s day!
When I met Seymour Merrall, I had no doubt about his passion for toy airplanes. With a great job that took him around the world, Merrall used his travels to collect antique and contemporary toy aircraft from all […]
Comic Book Superheroes
Just how popular are comic book superheroes today?
Judging by recent domestic box office receipts, electronic game and toy sales, and the robust memorabilia market, superheroes have as much appeal as ever. More than 70 years after Superman burst onto the scene,
In June 1938, a new comic book hit newsstands and dime stores, capturing the imagination of American children nearly instantaneously. What merited such attention? The first issue of Action Comics established the superhero genre with the creation of Superman—an […]
Jenga. Jenga? Jenga!
What’s in a name, anyway? From the Ouija board to Twister, from Rubik’s Cube to Pictureka, toy and game designers often seek unique and memorable names, or names that cleverly describe both the thing and the play. “Jenga” is one clever game name. While it doesn’t mean anything else besides the game in English, the word “jenga” is based on “to build” in Swahili. In the early 1990s the promoters stressed Jenga’s name in this advertisement. Kids and adults alike […]