Different versions of the game were also created to serve unique purposes. Once Parker Brothers took over marketing the board game, sales began to explode in the United States and abroad. Alexander, and was based on streets in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The “original” Parker Brothers Version of the board game involved contributions from a famous cartoonist, F.O. The history of the board game that most are familiar with involves a struggling Charles Darrow selling his game amidst the crippling US Depression.ĭarrow would invent, or re-invent, Monopoly, later selling it to Parker Brothers in 1935 after selling nearly 5,000 homemade versions of the game under his name.ĭarrow would make millions from this deal with Parker Brothers in which he received generous royalties. Video can’t be loaded because JavaScript is disabled: 31st December 1935: Monopoly board game patented () 1930’s Monopoly Since there were seemingly no written rules to the game and Darrow hadn’t heard of the game before their encounter, he began distributing it himself and calling it The Monopoly Game.Ĭheck out this video for some great information and visuals on the first Monopoly game, and the Landlord’s game: In 1932, Charles and his wife, Esther, Darrow were invited to the home of their friends, businessman Charles Todd and his wife, Olive.Ĭharles and Olive Todd would introduce their newfound board game, The Landlord’s Game, to the Darrows.Ĭharles Darrow developed a fascination for the game, so he made Todd write up a set of rules. A Landlord’s game introduced today, might have turned into Anti-Monopoly instead! The First Monopoly Board Game Perhaps if Magie had lived in modern times, things would have been different. Without speaking to the politics, perhaps Magie was out of her time, as cooperative board games have more recently gained popularity. Ironically, Monopoly turned out to be almost the opposite of Magie’s intention. It is believed that Magie profited a mere $500 in total from her creation of The Landlord’s Game. Eventually, a man named Charles Darrow would take these rules and develop his own game, which he would later sell to Parker Brothers. The Resultĭespite Magie’s best efforts to heighten awareness surrounding forming monopolies’ moral dilemma, the monopolist rules were wildly popular. In this ruleset, which we are familiar with today, the players’ goal is to develop monopolies and crush their opponents. The monopolist rules to Magie’s The Landlord’s Game, unfortunately for her, are the ones that gained popularity. In Magie’s anti-monopolist rules for The Landlord’s Game, every player feels the rewards anytime the game generates wealth. The idea behind having two opposing sets of rules was to display that the anti-monopolist strategy proved superior in morality. When Magie created the game, she established two different sets of rules for her Landlord’s Game anti-monopolist and monopolist. The Landlord’s game is a contradiction of Monopoly as we know it today: Magie had initially created the game to protest the big-name monopolists at the time, namely Andrew Carnegie and John D. The origins of Monopoly go as far back as 1903, when a progressive woman by the name of Elizabeth, or Lizzie, Magie filed a legal claim for her game, known as The Landlord’s Game.

A brief history of the tokens of MonopolyĪlthough Parker Brothers and Hasbro are names that might come to mind thanks to the board game Monopoly, the history of the game goes much further back than either of their grasps.

How Monopoly has changed since the 1930s.Welcome to the history of Monopoly, where you will discover: So, today, I want to share with you an accumulation of my findings. With such a game so deeply rooted into my family tree, I became curious one day to find out more. I grew up playing Monopoly, and I could hardly wait for my son to grow old enough to teach him the game (my daughter is next). I don’t think I’m alone in saying that, though. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that Monopoly has threatened to tear my family apart on more than one occasion while playing. Remarkably, the history of monopoly is a genuinely contradictory one. When you think of Monopoly today, the first things that come to mind are usually “Jail,” “Go,” and a rainbow of brightly colored property spaces.īut, did you know that Monopoly has a hidden past? The Monopoly that families today have learned to love and play is far different from the game’s origins.

Monopoly versions