March 7
MONOPOLY DAY
It was on this day in 1933 that Charles Darrow created the game we know as Monopoly. Or was it?
Maybe Lizzie J. Magie’s The Landlord’s Game, patented on January 5, 1904, was the real monopoly game. Or was it? Lizzie's game was very similar to Monopoly, except she, a Quaker from Virginia, created it as a political comment to promote a single land-ownership tax. She shared it with other Quakers and proponents of the tax measure. Families copied the game, adding their own favorite street names and changing the rules as they pleased. The name of the game changed as the rules changed.
A Reading, Pennsylvania college student, Dan Layman, played the version his friends called Monopoly in the late 1920s. Once out of college, and back home in Indianapolis, he produced the game under the name, Finance. His dorm-mate, Louis Thun, copyrighted several rules that the two had written. Was Layman’s the real Monopoly game?
Or was it Ruth Hoskins and friends, Quakers who lived in Atlantic City, who made the Monopoly game we still play? Ruth learned how to play the game from a friend of Layman’s in Indianapolis. She then moved to Atlantic City and shared it with other friends. In 1930, they made a version complete with Atlantic City street names like Boardwalk, Park Place, Virginia and Pennsylvania Avenues; even including Marven Gardens, a residential section at the edge of Margate City, a suburb of Atlantic City.
Charles Darrow, an inventor of sorts, first saw and played the game in 1931, when he and his wife were introduced to Monopoly by mutual friends of Ruth Hoskins. The Darrows, who lived in Germantown, Pennsylvania, were penniless. The Depression had left them destitute. Fascinated with the game, Darrow made some modifications, misspelled Marven Gardens as Marvin Gardens, added copyrighted artwork and produced games which he then began to sell on this day in 1933.
The popularity of the game was instant. Darrow could not keep up with the demand. He eventually sold his ‘rights’ to Parker Brothers who initially turned Darrow away, saying that his game had “52 fundamental errors.” The 50-year-old company eventually agreed to give Darrow royalties on every Monopoly game sold, on the condition that they could write “short version” game rules. Ultimately, Darrow became a millionaire at age 46.
So, who made the unwritten rule that the next player to land on Free Parking gets the money, if any, collected from Chance and Community Chest fees? We don't have the answer to that or who the real Monopoly creator was ... but we wonder if whoever it was owned Boardwalk? And, did they pass GO and collect $200?
Those Were the Days, the Today in History service from 440 International
No portion of these files may be reproduced without the express, written permission of 440 International Inc.
