Monopoly: Two Inventors With Different Objectives

7 min read

Hi everyone, I’m Rick Barron, your host, and welcome to my podcast, That’s Life, I Swear

The game of Monopoly is one of the most well-known board games in the world. It’s a game of strategy, luck, and skill that’s been entertaining people for over a century. It’s also a game that can bring people together or develop into arguments accusing someone of cheating. Who invented this game that we love and dispute about? This story has some surprises. 

Let’s jump into this 

As I said from the outset, Monopoly has been around for years and still has legs. Not too many board games can say that today. I decided to dig around about this game, and much to my surprise, I discovered a lot of interesting information about the game's invention, and its creator or in this case, creators, plural.

The game is one of the most well-known board games in the world, played by millions of people of all ages. The game is so popular that it has become a household name, and its iconic imagery game pieces such as the top hat, a dog, and a thimble are recognized worldwide. Personally, I’ve always liked the race car. 

But how did this classic board game come to be? Who invented it and when? And what are some interesting tidbits? That said, let’s dive into the history of this popular board game and its impact on popular culture.

Elizabeth Magie. Courtesy of: Wikipedia

The game of Monopoly was created in the early 20th century, during a time when the United States was experiencing a period of rapid growth and industrialization. In 1903, a woman named Elizabeth Magie, an American writer and inventor, invented a board game called "The Landlord's Game," not Monopoly, that would come later.  The game was designed to teach players about the evils of monopolies and the benefits of a single-tax system.

Lizzie Magie, she liked being called ‘Lizzie’ by the way, was many things during her life. She was an artist, writer, feminist and inventor. A woman of many talents.

She worked as a stenographer and typist at the Dead Letter Office in Washington, D.C., a repository for the nation’s lost mail. But she also appeared in plays, and wrote poetry and short stories. 

Lizzie had a creative mind. In 1893, she obtained a patent for a gadget that fed different-sized papers through a typewriter and allowed more type on a single page. Be sure you check my website as I provided a link to the patent showing this gadget, which is pretty interesting. Having received a patent really got her motivated for future ideas.

The original Monopoly Game. Courtesy of The Glinder Factor

It was about eleven years later, in 1904, Lizzie received her second patent. The patent had nothing to do will upgrading the typewriter again. No, instead this invention was for the Landlord’s Game, a square board with eight rectangular spaces on each side, set between corners labeled “P.D.Q. R.R. fare $100”, “Gee-Whiz R.R. fare $100”, “Lickety-Cut R.R. fare $100”, and “Stop Here, Labor Applied to Land Procedures Wages $400”. As design updates happen over the years, the four corners would see changes such as “Go to Jail” and “Free Parking”. 

The goal of the game was for players to circle the board buying up railroads, collecting money and paying rent. She made up two sets of rules, “monopolist” and “anti-monopolist.” 

The real purpose for the game was more of a teaching tool. She wanted to use the game as a means of teaching about the evils of amassing vast sums of wealth at the expense of others. Funny, over a hundred plus years later and we still talk about this injustice. Lizzie grew up during the early 20th century, which was an era of business expansion and progressive reform in the United States.

She was a radical against the railroads, steel and oil monopolists of her time. She told a reporter in 1906, and I quote: “In a short time, I hope a very short time, men and women will discover that they are poor because Carnegie and Rockefeller, have more than they know what to do with.” End quote

Henry George, American economist. Courtesy of: Wikipedia

Lizzie was a follower of the economist Henry George, who advocated for a land value tax as a way of discouraging monopolies and promoting equality. The Landlord's Game was her way of illustrating George's ideas and educating people about the dangers of unchecked capitalism.

The Landlord’s Game was sold for a while by a New York-based publisher, but it spread freely in passed-along homemade versions: among intellectuals along the Eastern Seaboard, fraternity brothers named Louis and Ferdinand Thun at Williams College, Quakers living in Atlantic City, writers and radicals like Upton Sinclair. 

Parker Brothers bought Lizzie Magie's game for $500 with no royalties and a promise to manufacture the game under its original title without changing any of the rules, along with a picture of her on the box. Parker Brothers marketed a few hundred sets of the Landlord's Game then stopped. Lizzie was not interested in profiting from the game but was happy that a major company distributed it.

Charles Darrow. Courtesy of: The Guardian

Over time, various versions of Lizzie game were created, but it wasn’t until the 1930’s that someone came up with a version that beat them all. Enter Charles Darrow.

Charles lost his job at a sales company following the Stock Market Crash of 1929. For a while he worked at various odd jobs, and like others, was struggling to make ends meet during the Great Depression. 

One evening he visited some friends who were playing a game based on the concept of buying and selling properties. As Darrow played the game that night, he had an epiphany. He decided to come up with a version of the game, but with his design. 

Darrow's version featured a board that was similar to Lizzie's original design, but with a few key differences. For example, he added Chance and Community Chest cards, which would allow players to win or lose money, and he also included tokens to represent the players. As his idea began to flourish, he drew what the boardgame should look like.  With no large paper nearby he did what any inventor did, improvise and work with what you have. Darrow drew his game concept on the kitchen tablecloth. A game was already forming in his mind as he built little hotels and houses to place on his painted streets.

Darrow's version of the game, which he titled "Monopoly," became a huge success. It was easy to learn and play, and it captured the spirit of the times, with its emphasis on accumulating wealth and dominating the market. His game quickly became a cultural phenomenon, with millions of copies sold and countless imitations and spinoffs created.

Darrow patented his version of the game on December 31,1935 and tried to sell it to game companies, but they all rejected it. He sold the game himself, and it quickly became popular. He eventually sold the rights to the game to the Parker Brothers game company in 1935, and they began producing and selling the game on a large scale. The royalties from Monopoly made Charles Darrow a millionaire, the first game inventor ever to earn that much money. After Darrow's death, Atlantic City erected a commemorative plaque in his honor. It stands on the Boardwalk near the corner of Park Place.

Now there is some controversy surrounding Darrow's claim to having invented Monopoly. Some historians argue that Darrow simply copied The Landlord's Game and made a few changes, while others claim that he was the true inventor of the game.

Regardless of who deserves credit for creating this board game, there is no denying the game's impact on popular culture. 

One of the most interesting points related to the game is how the game reflects and shapes our understanding of capitalism and the free market. On the one hand, Monopoly can be seen as a celebration of the virtues of competition and entrepreneurship, with players striving to outsmart and outmaneuver their opponents in the pursuit of wealth and success.

The board game can also be seen as a critique of capitalism and the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few. The game's emphasis on acquiring and monopolizing property can be seen as a warning against the dangers of unchecked greed and the social inequalities that result from it.

Racing car. Courtesy of: Smithsonian Magazine

Interesting data points:

1.     Real objects inspired the game's iconic tokens. The classic game pieces tokens, such as the top hat, the shoe, and the thimble, were all inspired by real objects owned by the Charles Darrow. For example, the thimble was taken from Darrow's wife's sewing kit, while the top hat was a hat that Darrow wore himself

2.     During World War II, the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI9) developed a special edition of Monopoly that included real money and hidden maps and tools that prisoners of war could use to escape. The game was distributed to POWs by the International Red Cross and is believed to have helped some escape

3.     On their first U.S. tour, The Beatles played Monopoly in their New York hotel room. John Lennon had a real passion for the game.

4.     Over 275 million games have been sold worldwide in over 111 different countries and have been translated into 43 languages. It has been played by over a billion people, with the longest-running game lasting for 70 days straight.

5.     According to surveys conducted by Hasbro — the company that acquired Parker Brothers in 1991 — 68% of players have never read the game’s official rulebook, and 49% are known to just make up their own rules.

Lizzie died at the age of 82 in 1948. She was buried with her husband Albert Wallace Phillips, who had died in 1937, in Columbia Gardens Cemetery, Arlington, Virginia. 

In 1957, Darrow appeared as a mystery challenger on the TV panel show To Tell the Truth.

He was 78 when he passed away on August 28, 1967 at his home in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. 

What can we learn from this story? What’s the take away

While Lizzie Magie had good intentions in wanting to teach the evils of amassing vast sums of wealth at the expense of others, it turns out that human nature, being what it is, that people are more in love with making a fortune. 

It is a game where players compete to acquire wealth by buying, renting, and selling properties.

The game contains all the elements of success and failure in the real world, and the game’s goal   is the same as the human race: the accumulation of wealth.

Well, there you go. That's life, I swear.

For further information regarding the material covered in this episode, I invite you to visit my website, which you can find on either Apple Podcasts/iTunes or Google Podcasts, for show notes calling out key pieces of content mentioned and the episode transcript.

As always, I thank you for listening. 

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