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How Henry George's Principles Were Corrupted Into the Game Called
Monopoly
Edward J. Dodson
[December, 2011]
History is filled with surprising stories of how people and ideas are
connected. One such story is that of the origins of the most popular
board game in modern history -- Monopoly.
The game of Monopoly has survived over its many decades because the
role of the dice promises a different outcome every time we sit down
to play. Each player begins the game as equals. Luck, and a bit of
strategy, eventually enable one player to dominate all others. That
player ends up amassing a huge virtual fortune in cash and control of
properties within the Monopoly community.
br> What most of those who play the Monopoly game are unaware of
(and could care less about) is that the origin and original
development of the game resulted out of a passion for social and
economic justice.
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In the late 1800s, a young woman
named Elizabeth Magie was introduced to the writings of Henry
George by her father. She eventually became one of many people
embracing George's philosophy of social and economic justice who
took on the task of trying to teach others what she had learned
from studying Progress and Poverty and George's other
works. |
What we know is that Elizabeth Magie -- collaborating with friends in
her Brentwood, Maryland community -- created a board game called The
Landlord's Game. Early in 1903 she applied for a patent for the
game, which was granted on 5 January, 1904 (No. 748,626). She
explained that the game was to be a "practical
demonstration of the present system of land-grabbing with all its
usual outcomes and consequences."
While still a young, single woman, Elizabeth -- or "Lizzie"
as she came to be called -- became a part-time resident of the Single
Tax enclave of Arden, Delaware. This was around 1903.
Stephen's Theater.......,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,....Craft
Shop
Whether on her own or in conjunction with other Single Taxers in
Arden, Lizzie continued to work on the design of The Landlord's
Game as a way to explain how Henry George's system of political
economy would work in real life.
The First Commercial Versions of The Landlord's Game
For reasons unknown, Elizabeth moved to Chicago, Illinois in 1906,
where she met, and in 1910 married, Albert Phillips. I have not been
able to find any reference to Albert as a dedicated follower of Henry
George, but it seems certain he was sympathetic to his wife's efforts.
At some point in 1910 Elizabeth and a number of other followers of
Henry George established the Economic Game Company of New York, which
published
The Landlord's Game.
Sometime soon thereafter Elizabeth and Albert moved to Clarendon,
Virginia, in the Washington D.C area and eventually patented a new
edition of The Landlord's Game in 1924 (No. 1,509,312) under
her married name of Elizabeth Magie Phillips.
This new edition, published by the Washington, D.C. firm, Adgame
Company, included named streets and other changes in the appearance of
the board. More importantly, the new edition included a second,
alternative, set of rules and a second name for the game, Prosperity.
Connections with Academe
| At some point early in the
twentieth century (perhaps while in Arden, Delaware), Scott
Nearing, then a Professor on the faculty of the University of
Pennsylvania Wharton School of Finance was introduced to The
Landlord's Game. Nearing had written admiringly of Henry
George and likely knew the most prominent followers of Henry
George living in Philadelphia and Arden. |
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Burton H. Wolfe, in "The Monopolization of Monopoly" (San
Francisco Bay Guardian, 1976), says that "Nearing played The
Landlord's Game with his brother, Guy Nearing, who lived in the
Henry George single tax community of Arden, Delaware." Then:
"As the students and single taxers played the game,
they began a process ... of altering the rules. The main change was
that instead of merely paying rent when landing on a property block,
the players could hold an auction to buy it.
They also made their own game boards so that they could replace the
properties designated by Lizzie Maggie with properties in their own
cities and states; this made playing more realistic. As they drew or
painted their own boards, usually on linen or oil cloth, they change
the title "Landlord's Game" to "Auction Monopoly"
and then just "Monopoly".
| Burton Wolfe also tells us that a young Rexford
E. Tugwell was one of the players. |
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One of Tugwell's own students, Priscilla Robertson -- long-time
editor of The Humanist -- provided the following details on
the early history of the game:
"In those days those who wanted copies of the board
for Monopoly took a piece of linen cloth and copied it in crayon. It
was considered a point of honor not to sell it to a commercial
manufacturer, since it had been worked out by a group of single
taxers who were anxious to defeat the capitalist system."
I am obliged to note here the considerable misrepresentation of
the objectives pursued by Single Taxers who shared Henry George's
principles. Defeating monopoly in all its forms (but, particularly,
monopoly of nature), not capitalism, was - and is - the cause embraced
then and today.
Other professors besides Scott Nearing found The Landlord's Game
to be of value in their classroom teaching. Other writers note the
game was played by students at Princeton University and Haverford
College. Changes were made to the board design, gathering the
properties into groups, allowing buildings to be added to the
locations and increasing the amount of rent charged based on the
number of like properties owned.
By the late 1920s, the version of the game being played by college
students and others had evolved quite a bit from Elizabeth's design.
The game was now generally referred to as Monopoly. A young
student at Williams College (Reading, Pennsylvania) produced a
commercial version under the name Finance, but the game was
essentially Monopoly. Then, a woman named Ruth Hoskins who
learned the game in Indianapolis moved to Atlantic City, New Jersey
and supposedly created the version that included the Atlantic City
street names.
The plot then thickens, as the game was introduced by friends of Ruth
Hoskin to Charles Todd, who lived in Germantown, Pennsylvania; and,
Charles Todd then introduced the game to Charles and Esther Darrow. As
Todd later recalled:
"The first people we taught it to after learning it
... was Darrow and his wife Esther. ...It was entirely new to them.
They had never seen anything like it before and showed a great deal
of interest in it. ...Darrow asked me if I would write up the rules
and regulations and I wrote them up ... and gave them to Darrow."
Enter Charles Darrow and Parker Brothers
During the last few decades, details of how the game
Monopoly came to be owned - and the profits from sales
monopolized - have come to light because of circumstances that could
not be controlled by Parker Brothers.
| Charles Darrow was the first to capitalize on the
evolution and popularity of the game. He secured a copyright
for his enhanced edition of the game in 1933. |
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The
familiar cardboard board, packaged in a white box, was produced
and sold locally in Philadelphia. Initially, Parker Brothers
declined to acquire the game from Darrow but reconsidered when
Darrow demonstrated there was a demand for the game by local
stores. In 1935, Darrow submitted the game to the U.S. Patent
Office and was granted a patent, the origins of the game
apparently not appreciated by the Patent Office clerks. Sales of
the game mushroomed, and Charles Darrow became a rather wealthy
individual. Parker Brothers became a major game producer on the
profits of Monopoly. |
Challenges to Monopoly's Monopoly
| Much of the credit for the
recent interest in The Landlord's Game, Elizabeth Magie
Phillips and the connection to Henry George's social and economic
philosophy belongs to Ralph Anspach. |
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In 1973, while on the economics faculty of San Francisco State
University, Professor Anspach designed a new game, which he called
Anti-Monopoly. When Anti-Monopoly started to compete
with Monopoly on store shelves, General Mills (successor to
Parker Brothers) filed a lawsuit against Proessor Anspach for patent
infringement. A decade-long legal battle ensued during which the lower
court actually ordered thousands of copies of Anti-Monopoly
destroyed.
Professor Anspach presented the historical evidence revealing that
Charles Darrow essentially taken the game virtually without change in
the design or rules from the version produced by Charles Todd. The
details of the legal battle to regain ownership rights to Anti-Poverty
is provided at the
Anti-Monopoly
website.
Getting back to Elizabeth Magie Phillips
A few references to Elizabeth's endeavors appear in Georgist
periodicals. In a 1926 issue of
Land and Freedom, it was announced that "a
group of Single Taxers contemplates a new and improved edition of the
Landlord's Game." Elizabeth also remained an active
Single Taxer, and in 1931 was a delegate to the Henry George Congress
held in Baltimore, Maryland during October.
Parker Brothers purchased Elizabeth's patents in 1932 for $500, under
condition that Parker Brothers would continue to publish The
Landlord's Game as well as Monopoly. Burton Wolfe
describes a meeting the Parker Brothers President, Robert Barton and
Elizabeth:
So, Barton met with Lizzie Magie, he testified, and asked
her if she would accept changes in her game. According to Barton's
recollection, she replied like this: "No. This is to teach the
Henry George theory of single taxation, and I will not have my game
changed in any way whatsoever." For John Droeger of San
Francisco, the lawyer taking his deposition, Barton explained why in
his opinion Lizzie Magie answered that way: "She was a rabid
Henry George single tax advocate, a real evangelist; and these
people never change."
In a January 1936 interview with her appeared in The Washington
Star, Elizabeth was asked:
"how she felt about getting only $500 for her patent
and no royalties ever. She replied that it was all right with her if
she never made a dime so long as the Henry George single tax idea
was spread to the people of the country. "
| A third edition of The
Landlord's Game was published by Parker Brothers in 1939, but
the game company did nothing to promote the game. |
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An essay written by Elizabeth appeared in the September-October 1940
issue of Land and Freedom, under the title "A Word to the
Wise." Even in her declining years, she was urging surviving
Single Taxers (or, Georgist, as the self-selected referred to
themselves) to action:
What is the value of our philosophy if we do not do our
utmost to apply it? To simply know a thing is not enough. To merely
speak or write of it occasionally among ourselves is not enough. We
must do something about it on a large scale if we are to make
headway. These are critical times, and drastic action is needed.
To make any worthwhile impression on the multitude, we must go in
droves into the sacred precincts of the men we are after. We must
not only tell them, but show them just how and why and where our
claims can be proven in some actual situation.
It is true that commendable attempts are being made now on the part
of Georgeists to reach "the people". Perhaps letters to
the papers are effective, if followed up systematically. Petitions
to busy people in high public places, or in large private
organizations, are gracefully acknowledged sometimes and that is
usually the end of it.
But more decisive action is needed. We must pick our men and our
business institutions, and those in high public places, and hammer
at them constantly and systematically. If possible, we should even
challenge them to open debate. We must show them in every way how
the adoption of the public collection of land rent will benefit not
only their business, but the whole community.
It would require those of us who are thoroughly grounded in the
Georgeist philosophy and its application, to undertake such a task.
Unfortunately, there are some among us who attempt it without an
adequate knowledge of all the problems involved, who do not know
when to speak and when not to speak. This can be corrected if we
will train ourselves for the task.
My suggestion is that a Committee on Arrangements be formed; and
that this Committee be on the lookout for quarry. Opportunities are
teeming all around us. There is the radio, for instance, with its
political speakers, with Forums and Round Table Talks (which hit
everything but the Bull's Eye). There are periodicals, such as the
Readers' Digest. There are lecturers, legislative bodies, authors of
social commentary best sellers. Some influential writer, speaker,
columnist or public figure should be selected and the Committee get
to work on him. Systematically, one letter after another week after
week, should be sent by members of the Committee. In our letters, we
might ask our correspondent some direct question in such a way that
will be likely to get a response of some kind. We will learn by
experience what to say and what not to say.
I am sure that actual, personal and continued contact with
influential public figures would be effective. Such a course is
bound to bag some prizes in time.
Elizabeth Magie Phillips died in 1948 in Arlington, Virginia.
Fast-Forward to The History Detectives
In 2004, a long-time resident of Arden, Delaware contacted the
producers of the television program,
History Detectives, asking for help identifying the history of
a wooden game board that had been in his family since the early 1900s.
Researching the origins of The Landlord's Game brought the
History Detectives to Philadelphia to interview then Education
Director, Dan Sullivan regarding the connection between the game's
design and objectives and the teachings of Henry George.
Unfortunately, this episode of History Detectives is not available
for viewing at the program's website.
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