The Strong

The Strong is an interactive, collections-based educational institution in Rochester, New York, United States, devoted to the study and exploration of play. It carries out this mission through five programmatic arms called “Play Partners.” These are the National Museum of Play, the International Center for the History of Electronic Games, the National Toy Hall of Fame, the Brian Sutton-Smith Library and Archives of Play, and the American Journal of Play.

Independent and not-for-profit, The Strong houses hundreds of thousands of historical materials related to play. These enable a multifaceted array of research, exhibition, and other interpretive activities that serve a diverse audience of adults, families, children, students, teachers, scholars, collectors, and others around the globe.

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 (26,200m2). The institution rebranded as The Strong in 2010—housing the National Museum of Play and four additional Play Partners.

The Strong collects and preserves artifacts, documents, and other materials that illuminate the meaning and importance of play. The hundreds of thousands of objects in The Strong’s collections comprise the world’s most comprehensive assemblage of toys, games, dolls, electronic games, and other items related to play.

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 some characteristics of a children’s museum, making it the second largest museum of that type in the United States.

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Wikipedia