The Monopolists

by Mary Pilon

  From its inception, the Landlord’s Game Forsyth points out that it’s unclear whether Lizzie’s super-early versions of the game included both sets of rules, but it’s likely that at least some early versions did, considering the early Ardenites and their fervent single tax views. Only a few copies of the rules from early games exist at all, and one could play by either set of rules on a board, so we’re sadly left to mere speculation.

  After years of tinkering “Rivals Mary M’Lane,” Washington Post.

  Soon thereafter This is a tricky one, based on the board of an Arden, Delaware, resident’s board. While Lizzie patented her game in 1904 and published it on her own in 1906, it’s possible that a handmade game made it to the single tax hub of Arden before her Economic Game Company board did. The idea of the game appears to have been around in this community before the game was mass-produced. No byline. Single Tax Review, Autumn 1902.

  In one of history’s coincidences Anne L. Macdonald. Feminine Ingenuity: Women and Invention in America (New York: Ballantine Books, 1992). J. E. Bedi. “Exploring the History of Women Inventors.” The Smithsonian, available at http://invention.smithsonian.org/centerpieces/ilives/womeninventors.html.

  3. A Utopia Called Arden

  “You are welcome hither …” Greeting placard in Arden, Delaware. Author visit to the Arden Craft Shop Museum.

  In the early 1900s Review of documents at the Delaware Historical Society.

  Arden residents were among the first Mike Curtis, Georgist historian and teacher, author phone interview, October 5, 2012. Pat Aller, “The Georgist Philosophy in Culture and History,” Henry George Institute, July 1999, http://www.henrygeorge.org/aller.htm.

  Fels’s dollars No byline. Boston Evening Transcript, November 20, 1915. “Single Tax in Andorra,” Joseph and Mary Fels papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Collection 1953, 1840–1966. My research assistant, Maureen Thompson, did a knockout job of investigating Fels and putting his role into context.

  As games and sports flourished Arden Craft Shop Museum.

  Poet Harry Kemp came to Arden William Brevda, Harry Kemp, the Last Bohemian (Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 1986). According to Delaware Historical Society documents, Kemp showed up in Arden with suitcases full of books, manuscripts, and a bundle of poems. Even though Kemp had a millionaire financier patron who bankrolled his creative work, Sinclair, seizing on the collectivist smell in Arden’s air, paid all of Kemp’s expenses. But that’s not all Kemp took from Sinclair in Arden. Sinclair had confided to his friend that his marriage to his wife, Meta, was on the brink. Sexually unsatisfied, Meta had affairs, while Upton rejected radical sex theory. (Yet Sinclair biographers have noted that he had extramarital affairs of his own.) Kemp and Meta had a liaison in Arden, with Meta later in her memoirs calling the romantic interlude “pagan.” Eventually, Meta left Arden for New York City with Kemp not far behind her. The Sinclairs divorced, and Meta later wrote to Sinclair in Arden that she and Kemp were trying to live as an example of “the rightness of free love.” The story of how Sinclair’s wife had left him in Arden was a national sensation, making the front pages of newspapers near and far from the once-quiet single tax haven: a love triangle between a famed socialist, a fiercely independent woman, and a renegade poet from Kansas. Arden became national news, the scene for one of the literary world’s greatest sources of gossip.

  Lizzie Magie also reached out Upton Sinclair, The Cry for Justice (self-published, 1915).

  The Mother Earth space The Georgists and women’s suffrage: Georgist News, Editor’s Notes, November 28, 1999, http://www.georgist.com/all/GN2/GN2-G.htm. Aller, “The Georgist Philosophy.”

  Some of the property spaces Thomas Forsyth has a sensational website chronicling some of the earliest Landlord’s Game boards. On a 1909 board played at Wharton (special thanks to Roy Heap and Becky Hoskins), we clearly see colors, but Forsyth pointed out that the lettering clearly links Heap’s board to the Arden design, likely via Nearing’s board. The Heap board was the earliest-known board to Ralph before he put the Lizzie Magie pieces together. A letter from Guy Nearing to a Mr. Rosenquist dated September 13, 1961, discusses his relationship with the Landlord’s Game and is part of the Anti-Monopoly court documents. Thomas Forsyth, “Landlord’s Game—1903: Arden Rules,” 2006, http://landlordsgame.info/games/lg-1903/lg-1903_arden-rules.html.

  4. George Parker and the Cardboard Empire

  “A game … is like role playing” Maxine Brady, The Monopoly Book: Strategy and Tactics of the World’s Most Popular Game (New York: David McKay, 1974).

  During the second half Salem’s history is explored wonderfully at the Peabody Essex Museum, a fantastic trove of the area’s roots and evolution: http://www.pem.org/.

  The ocean had captured Family tree: Philip Orbanes, The Game Makers: The Story of Parker Brothers from Tiddledy Winks to Trivial Pursuit (Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 2004). Orbanes said that the dates were provided to him by Randolph Barton and Channing Bacall Jr.

  George Jr. enjoyed a relatively Ibid.

  The U.S. economy was booming Michael Lind, Land of Promise: An Economic History of the United States, Kindle ed. (New York: HarperCollins, 2013).

  Among the first widely selling Review of documents at Old Sturbridge Village, Sturbridge, Massachusetts. Jill Lepore, The Mansion of Happiness: A History of Life and Death (New York: Knopf, 2012).

  He and his friends wanted Parker Brothers, 75 Years of Fun: The Story of Parker Brothers, Inc. (Salem, MA: Parker Brothers, 1958).

  In addition, the power of promotion In 1889, a judge overturned the patent decision, ruling in Edison’s favor, but the history of those tinkering with light prior to Edison is lengthy. The Wizard of Menlo Park by Randall Stross is a good place to start (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2007).

  It was against this backdrop Parker Brothers, 75 Years of Fun.

  The game reflected For more on booms and busts, see Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011).

  By adding the element of speculation Parker Brothers, 75 Years of Fun.

  George listened Ibid.

  The newspaper industry The heyday owed in part to newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer, who, if this photograph is any indication, was a model of hipster style far ahead of his time: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Pulitzer.

  Milton Bradley, the man Jill Lepore, “The Meaning of Life: What Milton Bradley Started,” New Yorker, May 21, 2007, 38–43.

  In 1860, Bradley created Milton Bradley 1866 patent, 53561.

  Bradley’s game was a huge hit James J. Shea Jr., The Milton Bradley Story (New York: Newcomen Society in North America, 1973). Shea’s narrative is a copy of a speech he delivered at the “1972 Massachusetts Dinner” of the Newcomen Society in North America, held in Boston on November 2, 1972.

  George Parker understood Ellen Wojahn, The General Mills/Parker Brothers Merger. Parker Brothers, 75 Years of Fun. Philip Orbanes said that while Chivalry, the game George Parker claimed to be his own, was a “modest” seller, Parker kept it in the catalog for decades, and it was eventually successfully recast as Camelot in the 1930s.

  A common problem “Fine New Games and Toys,” New York Times, December 1, 1895. Far from the Parker Brothers game boomlet in New England, entrepreneur Fusajiro Yamauchi set up his own card game company in Kyoto, Japan, in 1889 and later gave it a name meaning “leave luck to heaven,” or Nintendo.

  “We may divide” Foster Rhea Dulles, A History of Recreation: America Learns to Play (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1965).

  Activists argued Andrew McClary, Toys with Nine Lives: A Social History of American Toys (North Haven, CT: Shoestring Press, 1997).

  Game makers wanted Inez McClintock and Marshall McClintock, Toys in America (Washington, D.C.: Public Affairs Press, 1961). The Smithsonian has some Parker Brothers catalogs from this era in its collection.

  In the late 1880s Or
banes, The Game Makers, 25. Orbanes cites George Parker notes. If Hasbro acquired the archives of George Parker when they purchased the company, they declined to make those records available to me. Parker Brothers, 75 Years of Fun.

  Living in elegant homes Sally Parker’s eventual wedding dress, for one: http://truthplusblog.com/2011/04/28/influential-images-peabody-essex-museums-2008-exhibit-wedded-bliss/.

  Later that same year Advertisement, Duluth News-Tribune, May 29, 1902.

  What started as buzz “Ping-Pong’s the Fad Now: The Little Game of Indoor Tennis That Is All the Rage,” Kansas City Star, January 9, 1902.

  A champion player Arnold Parker, (no known relation to Parker Brothers) Ping-Pong: The Game and How to Play It (New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1902). You can read Parker’s tome for free here: http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=loc.ark:/13960/t9087429k;view=1up;seq=9. If you do, bless your heart and feel free to write to me about your experience: marypilon@gmail.com. If it’s the next Moby-Dick, I want to be in the loop.

  Perhaps out of fear “Why You Mustn’t Use the Word ‘Ping-Pong,’” Salt Lake Telegram, May 31, 1902.

  Eventually, in 1933 Jay Purves, Table Tennis (New York: A. S. Barnes, 1942). Orbanes, The Game Makers, 61–62.

  But he didn’t make it to the battlefront Flu epidemic: David E. Kyvig, Daily Life in the United States, 1920–1940: How Americans Lived Through the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2002).

  In the summer of 1921 “R. P. Parker Killed in Paris Plane’s Fall,” New York Times, September 9, 1921.

  Halfway across the Atlantic Obituaries, Boston Daily Globe, September 21, 1921.

  5. New Life for the Landlord’s Game

  “Every girl yearns” “Message to World: Girl’s ‘White Slave’ Sale Brings Many Bids,” Washington Post, October 14, 1906.

  Finding it difficult “Rivals Mary M’Lane: Miss Magie, of Chicago, Lived Long in Washington …,” the Washington Post, October 13, 1906.

  Purchasing an advertisement “Thinks She Has Arrived,” Washington Post, October 20, 1906.

  She said that she didn’t “Girl with Gray-Green Eyes Wants to Be Slave,” Muskogee Times-Democrat, October 19, 1906.

  The ad quickly “Miss Magie Explains,” Washington Post, October 19, 1906.

  “Money only has a relative value” “Message to World,” Washington Post.

  Despite the fact “A Mary M’Lain in the Limelight.”Waterloo Times-Tribune, October 24, 1909.

  “I’m thankful that I was taught” “Would Be Slave Girl Is Glad She Is Alive,” Kalamazoo Gazette, October 17, 1909.

  Many likened Lizzie Mary MacLane, Tender Darkness: A Mary MacLane Anthology, ed. Elisabeth Pruitt (Belmont, CA: Abernathy & Brown, 1993).

  “I am not good,” Mary MacLane, I Await the Devil’s Coming (Brooklyn, NY: Melville House, 2013).

  Lizzie found herself besieged “Miss Magie Explains,” Washington Post. “Message to World,” Washington Post.

  If Lizzie’s goal “Refused All Offers” Loganville Daily Reporter, October 24, 1906.

  In 1909, Lizzie authored a paper It’s unclear where the original essay was published, but it was reported on and quoted extensively. No byline. “Wail of a Woman.” Grey River Argus, December 18, 1909.

  A businessman St. Paul Globe, August 23, 1889. Hat tip to David Sadowski.

  Lizzie’s unusual marriage “Husbands and Wives Battle to Save ‘Property’ and ‘Money’ as the ‘Mortgages’ Eat Away Bankrolls and ‘Fortunes’ Dwindle,” Boston Sunday Post, Februrary 16, 1936.

  Georgism was not socialism Karl Marx to Friedrich Adolph Sorge, June 20, 1881. Available on Marxists.org. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1881/letters/81_06_20.htm.

  On April 28, 1923 Landlord’s Game patent, No. 1,509,312, September 23, 1924.

  Little did she know Alice Armstrong Mitchell, deposition, Anti-Monopoly Inc. vs. General Mills Fun Group Inc., May 19, 1976.

  At least one member Roger Angell, author phone interview, March 26, 2013.

  6. Frat Boys and Quakers Change the Game

  “I wasn’t out to make a whole lot of money.” Brooke Lerch, deposition, Anti-Monopoly Inc. vs. General Mills Fun Group Inc., September 11, 1975.

  The Landlord’s Game may have begun Daniel Layman, deposition, Anti-Monopoly Inc. vs. General Mills Fun Group Inc., January 17, 1975. Williams did not become coed until 1970, although some exchange programs existed that allowed some women to take courses. Image of the frat house, courtesy of the Library of Congress: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/det1994005551/PP/. How many times does someone get to write that sentence?

  The Thun brothers Layman deposition.

  Dubbing his game Finance Ibid.

  The initial sales of Finance Brooke Lerch, deposition, Anti-Monopoly Inc. vs. General Mills Fun Group Inc., September 11, 1975.

  For half a year Wanamaker’s, which today is a Macy’s, with most of the original opulence preserved, was also where the iconic 1987 film Mannequin was filmed. Nothing’s gonna stop us now.

  Lerch showed up Pennsylvania Railroad advertisement, Atlantic City Historical Museum, visited October 12, 2012. Lerch deposition.

  In the 1850s Library of Congress, Today in History: June 26, “On the Boardwalk,” http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/jun26.html. Nelson Johnson, Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times, and Corruption of Atlantic City (Medford, NJ: Medford, 2002). Exhibit, Atlantic City Historical Museum, visited October 12, 2012.

  The Boardwalk was also home Richard Cahan, “A Court That Shaped America: Chicago’s Federal District Court” (Evanston, IL.: Northwestern University Press, 2002). Carnival tangent: Somers and Ferris were engaged in a legal battle, which Ferris won, based in part on the claim that Ferris’s wheel was significantly larger in design than Somers’s roundabouts. Ferris’s wheel was a sensation, and his name became glued to the invention, associated with jovial state fairs, vertigo, and first kisses. Somers’s 1893 roundabout patent # 489238 was filed in 1891. His patent was issued just months before the Ferris wheel premiered at the Chicago World’s Fair, but Somers had constructed several of his wheels in New Jersey and in New York’s Coney Island. Somers sued Ferris, but the case was dismissed.

  By the mid-1920s Johnson, Boardwalk Empire. Bryant Simon, Boardwalk of Dreams: Atlantic City and the Fate of Urban America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004).

  Enoch “Nucky” Johnson Atlantic City Convention Hall, National Historic Register of Places nomination form, U.S. Department of the Interior, http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/NHLS/Text/87000814.pdf. Plaque, Ritz Condominiums, Atlantic City, visited October 12, 2012.

  Hotels were the undisputed kings Atlantic City Historical Museum.

  Among the many institutions Ruth Evelyn Hoskins, deposition, Anti-Monopoly Inc. vs. General Mills Fun Group Inc., February 4, 1975.

  Ruth Harvey created copies Dorothy Harvey Leonard, Game Researchers’ Notes, no. 8, American Game Collectors Association, Bartlesville, OK, August 1990. Arden Craft Shop Museum and Swarthmore University, where Leonard donated all of her papers. The folks at Swarthmore were a great resource as I put together this leg of my research. Dorothy Leonard, deposition, Anti-Monopoly Inc. vs. General Mills Fun Group Inc., February 4, 1975.

  Jesse Raiford, a real estate agent Leonard deposition. Hoskins deposition.

  To make ends meet Cyril Harvey, deposition, Anti-Monopoly Inc. vs. General Mills Fun Group Inc., February 4, 1975.

  Sometimes, their arguments Leonard deposition. Ruth Raiford, deposition, Anti-Monopoly Inc. vs. General Mills Fun Group Inc., February 4, 1975.

  The Raifords and the Todds U.S. Census, 1930, available on Ancestry. com.

  At dinner, the couples conversed Charles E. Todd, deposition, Anti-Monopoly Inc. vs. General Mills Fun Group Inc., February 6, 1975.

  7. Charles Darrow’s Secret

  “How many men” Henry George, Progress and Poverty.

  One night, the Darrows Charles E. Todd to John Droeger, N
ovember 8, 1974, Anspach archives. I’ve discussed the similarities and differences between the Todd board and the Darrow 1935 patent with several historians, including Jonathan Will. Author phone interview, September 27, 2012.

  Over time, Darrow’s questions Todd to Droeger, November 8, 1974. Charles E. Todd, deposition, Anti-Monopoly Inc. vs. General Mills Fun Group Inc., February 6, 1975. In her deposition, Esther Darrow maintained that she only remembered playing monopoly with the Todds once.

  Charles Darrow was unemployed Esther J. Darrow, deposition, Anti-Monopoly Inc. vs. General Mills Fun Group Inc., April 23, 1975. She put William’s birthday as June 15, 1928, and Richard’s as 1932. U.S. Census for Philadelphia, dated 1900, available on Ancestry.com.