Did You Know?
A Quaker
created the Monopoly game
The fact that Lizzie Magie, a
Virginia Quaker, developed the
precursor of the Monopoly Game,
is acknowledged by historians
and the courts, but not by the
manufacturers, Parker Brothers.
And probably with good reason.Lizzie, who first patented her game in 1904, had quite a different purpose in mind for the game than a celebration of greed. Lizzie’s Landlord Game was meant to demonstrate how property speculation led to poverty, oppression, and other social problems. In her game’s ideal world, unscrupulous landlords would wind up in jail for rent-gouging and throwing a two with the dice would mean you were “Caught robbing the public — take $200 from the board. The players will now call you ‘Senator.’ ”
A creative inventor, Lizzie introduced two original ideas into this type of board game: Players won not by finishing the loop first but by achieving more than the other players and they could “own” spaces to affect the outcome of the game.
Lizzie’s game enjoyed an grassroots success among academics, economists and social progressives, including an economics professor at the University of Pennsylvania who actually used it in his curriculum. His students renamed the game Monopoly and it continued its transformation as it moved from player to player until it became the game of today.
Lizzie Magie received $500 from Parker Brothers but no credit — though she probably wouldn’t have wanted it for their version. Ironically, in 1973, Ralph Anspach published a game called Anti-Monopoly — and by turning the modern Monopoly game purpose upside down, he brought the game full circle back to Lizzie’s original vision.
— Terry Matz