Monopoly is one of the most famous board games in the world. Generations of families have argued over Boardwalk, landed in jail, and quietly slipped extra cash from the bank. For years, the official story said one man came up with it. That story left someone out.
The game that became Monopoly was invented by a woman named Lizzie Magie. She patented her version, called The Landlord's Game, in 1904. About three decades later, Parker Brothers published a modified version as Monopoly, and Charles Darrow was credited as its inventor.
A Game With a Lesson
Elizabeth Magie was born in 1866. She was a writer, a game designer, and an outspoken feminist. She was also a follower of economist Henry George, who argued that governments should fund themselves with a single tax on land rather than taxes on income.
Magie created The Landlord's Game to show the harm caused when a few people own all the land. She applied for a patent in 1903 and received it on January 5, 1904. Remarkably, she got her patent before American women had the right to vote nationally.
Later versions of her game had two sets of rules. In one, called Monopoly, players tried to build monopolies and drive everyone else out. In the other, called Prosperity, the goal was to create and share wealth. Magie wanted players to feel how unfair the first set of rules was.
The Game Everyone Copied
The Landlord's Game spread across the Northeast. College students at Harvard, Columbia, and the University of Pennsylvania played it, along with Quaker communities. Many people simply drew their own boards at home.
In Atlantic City, New Jersey, local Quakers played a version with properties named after their own city's streets. That's why the classic board has Atlantic City names. Charles and Olive Todd, who taught the game to Charles Darrow, even introduced a famous misspelling: the real neighborhood is Marven Gardens, but the board says Marvin Gardens.
How She Lost the Credit
Parker Brothers began selling Monopoly in November 1935, and Darrow received a patent for the board design that December. Darrow claimed he had invented the game in his basement. Magie said she made only about $500 from her invention and got none of the credit.
In January 1936, she spoke to a Washington newspaper about the similarities between the two games. Parker Brothers agreed to publish two more of her games, but kept giving Darrow credit for Monopoly.
The truth came out later. Ralph Anspach, creator of a game called Anti-Monopoly, dug into the game's history during a legal fight with Parker Brothers and discovered Magie's patents.
A Bold Woman Ahead of Her Time
Magie never shied away from making a point. To draw attention to how women were treated, she once bought a newspaper ad offering herself for sale as a young woman American slave in search of a husband. The ad became the talk of the town and spread through newspapers across the country.
She also helped popularize something we now take for granted: the circular game board. Most board games of her day were laid out in a straight line.
So the next time you pass Go and collect your $200, give a little nod to Lizzie Magie. She built the board we all know, even if it took the world a long time to say thank you.
