![]() “It might well have been called the ‘Game of Life,’ as it contains all the elements of success and failure in the real world.” It was also meant as not-so-thinly-veiled indictment of industrialists like John Rockefeller. “It is a practical demonstration of the present system of land-grabbing with all its usual outcomes and consequences,” she wrote in a magazine in 1902. Magie prided herself not on the game play, but its message. The game ends when all but one person runs out of money. There was even a space that read “Go to Jail,” which means exactly what it does today – one had to sit in jail until they rolled doubles or paid a $50 fine. There were Chance cards, but they were adorned with quotes from Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Carnegie. ![]() Public Parking and Jail were situated on the corner’s boards, just like today. Other spaces forced players to pay money. Moving around the board, players earned wages for labor performed and got a hundred dollars for moving past the “Mother Earth Space” – basically, this game’s version of passing Go. Landlord’s was also played with fake money and deeds which were used to pay rent, taxes and purchase property. While not quite what we play today, there are striking similarities between Magie’s original game and Monopoly. In 1897, the monopolist version debuted and, six years later, she patented it as “The Landlord’s Game. Specifically creating an anti-monopolist and a monopolist game, illustrating both sides of the issue. Knowing that a board game would better capture the attention of her middle-class audience and thus potentially be a good vehicle to help illustrate and spread George’s principles, Magie began working on games based on them. Hence, the boom in creation of more complex games beyond cards or dice in the ensuing decades. As the middle-class began to grow and work moved into factories (and away from the home) and the work day was starting to be markedly shortened (see: Why is a Typical Work Day Eight Hours Long?), the house became the center of leisure activity. Most notable to the subject at hand, the book pushed a single land tax replacing all other taxes, positing that it would affect the wealthy more heavily, redistribute wealth, curb poverty and destroy monopolies.Īt the turn of the 20th century, board games were becoming all the rage. She admired her father and was often told she was a “chip off the old block,” which she thought of as a compliment once saying, “I am proud of my father for being the kind of an ‘old block’ that he is.” As a young girl, her father exposed Magie to progressive, anti-capitalist writings and attitudes, including Henry George’s 1879 best-selling book, “Progress and Poverty.” This influential book was the seed in which the famed game grew from. The daughter of local newspaper publisher and noted abolitionist James Magie, Elizabeth Magie was raised to question the governing class. Here’s the story behind why Darrow is given credit for the creation of one of the world’s most famous board games despite having almost nothing to do with any part of its creation. The true inventor of Monopoly was a turn-of-the-century feminist and left-wing activist Elizabeth Magie, who was looking to create a game that illustrated certain economic concepts. In other words, while still often repeated today, it’s false. However, this Monopoly origin story should not pass “Go” and should not collect two hundred dollars. Over the last eight decades, the game has entertained hundreds of millions of people and made Darrow an exceptionally wealthy man in his lifetime, with his name forever etched in gaming lore. Never able to fully explain how he came up with the concept, Darrow once described his invention as “totally unexpected” and a “freak” of nature. In 1933 at the height of the Great Depression, a down-on-his luck Charles Darrow invented the still-extremely popular board game Monopoly, making the impoverished man a millionaire seemingly overnight- a personification of the American Dream.
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