Chances are that you may have never heard of Margaret Strong, but as a collector, I have the utmost respect for her endeavors that led to the creation of The Strong’s National Museum of Play. Born at the end of the nineteenth century, she traveled the world and accumulated more than twenty-seven thousand dolls, as well as countless other items of interest – mostly toys. She expanded her home, already thirty rooms in size, by adding two
gallery style wings. She had plans to add yet another wing and a lecture room to hold all the “goodies” but passed away in 1969 before ground had been broken.
In 1982, her dream became a reality when the Margaret Woodbury Strong Museum opened its doors to the Rochester community. Now, as it is approaching its thirty-year anniversary, the museum has expanded to over 282,000 square feet and serves a global audience. While the dolls are certainly still a centerpiece of the museum, now called The Strong’s National Museum of Play, a large percentage of the facility is dedicated to interactive video games!
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Michael Thomasson is one of the most widely respected videogame historians in the field today. He currently teaches college level videogame history, design, and graphics courses. For television, Michael conducted research for MTV's videogame related program Video MODS. In print, he authored Downright Bizarre Games, and has contributed to nearly a dozen gaming texts. Michael’s historical columns have been distributed in newspapers and magazines worldwide. He has written business plans for several vendors and managed a dozen game-related retail stores spanning three decades. Michael consults for multiple video game and computer museums and has worked on nearly a hundred game titles on Atari, Coleco, Sega and other console platforms. In 2014, The Guinness Book of World Records declared that Thomasson had “The Largest Videogame Collection” in the world. His businesses sponsor gaming tradeshows and expos across the US and Canada. Visit www.GoodDealGames.com.
