Monopoly

Nearly a hundred years ago, robber barons were rampaging in America, and Elizabeth “Lizzie” J. Magie Phillips decided she’d do something about it in her own small way.

She created a board game that spotlighted the greed and corruption of industrial bigwigs — especially in oil, railroads, land and banking.

Lizzie called it The Landlord’s Game.

One account said, “To Elizabeth … the problems of the new century were so vast, the income inequalities so massive and the monopolists so mighty that it seemed impossible that an unknown woman working as a stenographer stood a chance at easing society’s ills with something as trivial as a board game. But she had to try.

It didn’t take long for someone to hijack the game concept and create Monopoly, after talking her into selling the patent rights to The Landlord’s Game and two other game ideas for only a beige-tinted $500 bill.

Today, Monopoly is called the world’s most popular board game — though some may say it’s chess or checkers.

Lizzie never made a dime from Monopoly.

All of this happened at a time when the “muckraker” journalist like Lincoln Steffens, Ida Tarbell, Sinclair Lewis and others were already exposing the robber barons — tycoons like John Jacob Astor, Andrew Carnegie, Leland Stanford, John D. Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt, J.P. Morgan and many others.

Mark Twain called those days the “Gilded Age,” when a growing America opened an even greater chasm between the rich and the poor.

The robber barons emerged on the American scene during Reconstruction after the Civil War, a time of immense growth of industry and technology.

Greedy and ruthless business tycoons, bankers, scalliwags and corrupt politicians became incredibly rich at the expense of the working class.

Lizzie Magie took exception to what she observed.

She was born in Macomb, Ill., in 1866. Her mother died and her father and new wife moved the family to Washington, D.C. He was a journalist and schoolteacher.

In the 1880s, Lizzie was a stenographer and typist at the Dead Letter Office where she invented a “typewriting machine” that moved the paper more easily through the rollers — patenting the invention.

Then she became interested in a single “land value tax” plan promoted by anti-monopolist economist and politician Henry George. He believed government should be funded only by a single tax on wealthy landlords — rather than taxing labor.

Lizzie’s passion for social and economic justice inspired her to design The Landlord’s Game in 1903 to teach George’s economic theories to friends and colleagues.

“Let the children once see clearly the gross injustice of our present land system,” she said.

A generation later during the Great Depression, Lizzie’s game would become Monopoly. Her board game would expose the evils of monopoly and greed, with the winner driving all the other players into bankruptcy and taking over all their properties — the bad guy winning.

The patent included two sets of rules. Years later, one of the two became the basis of today’s Monopoly rules.

Her Landlord game had the familiar “Go to Jail,” “Free Parking” (at “Central Park”), taxes, “Water Franchise,” railroad and “Broadway” that appeared later in Monopoly.

By 1924, Lizzie was married to Chicago businessman Albert Phillips and invented a revised version of The Landlord Game. The new patent said, “The object of the game is not only to afford amusement to the players, but to illustrate to them how under the present or prevailing system of land tenure, the landlord has an advantage over other enterprises and also how the single tax would discourage land speculation.”

In the ’20s and ’30s, The Landlord Game became increasingly popular in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. Some college professors even used the game in classes to illustrate how economics works.

That period in Monopoly’s history saw many people trying to grab a piece of the Monopoly action — or just enjoyed promoting the game. Henry George loved the game, and so did many Quakers — apparently approving of the moral lessons built into it.

It was the Quakers in Atlantic City, N.J., who introduced their local street names like Boardwalk and Park Place — now so familiar on American-made boards. Monopoly boards in England have King’s Cross Station, Pall Mall, Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly.

While going through economic hardship of the Great Depression, Charles Darrow, a heater salesman in the Philadelphia suburb of Germantown, learned about the game through a Quaker friend, Charles Todd, and saw a way to make some money.

He talked Lizzie Magie Phillips into selling him the rights to her Landlord game, but without her receiving any royalties.

In 1935, Darrow tinkered some more with The Landlord Game design, making several prototypes that eventually became today’s Monopoly game.

He made it a family affair:

Darrow drew the designs of the properties with drafting pens, and his son and wife colored the spaces and made the title deed cards, as well as the Chance and Community Chest cards. Design of the die-cast tokens was suggested by his nieces. The cards were handwritten and the game map was drawn on a piece of oilcloth covering the board. The houses and hotels were made out of scrap wood.

Many more changes have taken place since then.

He first offered the game to Milton Bradley Company board game makers but they weren’t interested. Then he approached Parker Brothers.

At first, Parker Brothers thought the game was too complicated and took too long to play, and claimed it had 52 design errors. They didn’t buy the rights either.

Darrow then started making game kits on his own, selling them mostly to stores in Philadelphia. When Parker Brothers saw sales skyrocketing, they changed their mind and bought the rights and in less than a year were making 35,000 copies a week.

Darrow became a millionaire.

During World War II, best “Get out of jail free” card was the specially-designed Monopoly sets sent to Allied POWs locked up in Nazi camps in Europe. MI9 — the British secret service unit responsible for escape and evasion — called on Britain’s licensed Monopoly maker John Waddington, Ltd. to hide useful escape items in Monopoly sets.

The company had mastered printing on silk cloth that was durable, lightweight and easily compacted into tight spaces — like cigarette packages or boots. Escaping prisoners needed items like regional maps, compasses, files, local money — all hidden in innocent Monopoly sets sent by the Red Cross and other relief agencies. The silk maps were hidden in the board itself. Italian, German and French money was mixed in with the Monopoly money.

The idea worked — saving the lives of thousands of Allied POWs.

Airmen were told before leaving on a mission that if they became POWs, to look for “special edition” Monopoly sets with a red dot on the Free Parking square.

The history of Monopoly is a dizzying trail of personalities, design and theme changes, and spinoffs from the original.

Lawsuits over copyrights and compensation ensued — at least one lasting more than 10 years.

Through it all, Lizzie Magie’s name was almost forgotten, and most of the world credited the invention of Monopoly to Charles Darrow.

Today, Hasbro owns the rights to Monopoly that is now available worldwide in more than 300 licensed versions.

The game sells for about $18 a set, but in the ’80s a San Francisco jeweler made a jewel-encrusted set valued at $2 million.

Much to be praised is journalist Mary Pilon who unearthed the true history of the popular game — finally giving deserved credit to Lizzie.

Pilon’s book, “The Monopolists: Obsession, Fury, and the Scandal Behind the World’s Favorite Board Game” released in 2015 became a best-seller and sets the record straight.

Lizzie Magie died in Staunton, Va., in 1948, a widow with no children, and with no mention of her invention in her obituary. One of her last jobs was at the U.S. Office of Education, where her colleagues knew her only as an elderly typist who talked about inventing games.?So what do the players learn in Monopoly? Is it how to get rich by being greedy and ruthless — or do they learn how to identify those sins in the real world when they see them?

For most, playing Monopoly is probably just to have a great time with family and friends.

Anyone want to buy a “GET OUT OF JAIL FREE” card?

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Contact Syd Albright at silverflix@roadrunner.com.

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The bad guys…

“The term ‘robber baron’ dates back to the Middle Ages and carries a negative connotation. Robber barons typically employed ethically questionable methods to eliminate their competition and develop a monopoly in their industry. Often, they had little empathy for workers. Captains of industry, however, were often philanthropists. They made their wealth — and used it — in a way that would benefit society, such as providing more jobs or increasing productivity.”

— Maryville University

Lizzie’s journalist-soldier dad…

“Lying upon my back, and holding my paper before my face, while the bullets from the enemy’s sharpshooters are making hideous music a few feet over my head, I will try to write some items for the Journal.”

— James Magie, Lizzie Magee’s father during the Civil War near Marietta, Ga. (1864)

The result was Monopoly…

Lizzie Magie “lived in Prince George’s county, a Washington DC neighbourhood where the residents on her block included a dairyman, a peddler who identified himself as a ‘huckster,’ a sailor, a carpenter and a musician. Lizzie shared her house with a male actor who paid rent, and a black female servant. She was also intensely political, teaching classes about her political beliefs in the evenings after work. But she wasn’t reaching enough people. She needed a new medium — something more interactive and creative.”

— The Guardian

Monopoly birthday coming up…

March 19, 1935, is the official birthday of Monopoly. That’s the day Parker Brothers acquired the rights for the game from Charles Barrow.

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‘Look for History Popcorn every Wednesday brought to you by Ziggy’s.’

Invitation to readers …

Everyone has a story. Press readers are invited to submit their Community History Popcorn stories (“Tasty little morsels of personal history”) for possible publication. Keep them 600 words or less. The stories may be edited if required. Submission of stories automatically grants permission to publish. Send to Syd Albright at silverflix@roadrunner.com.