On winter Saturdays when I was a ten or eleven, my friend Phil would come by the house and teach me a lesson in economics by thrashing me in Monopoly
. I don't think I ever beat Phil on those dreary, dark winter Saturdays. I could, however, sometimes manage a stalemate that would force us to concoct an ad-hoc ending to the venerable old board game, but even in those cases, I recall coming out on top only rarely. The coming of winter—and the endless drumbeat of dreary economic news—combined to make me think of Monopoly. According to Wikipedia, the board game named Monopoly was created during the early days of the Great Depression. Much like the version of Monopoly sold by Parker Brothers and its parent companies throughout the rest of the 20th century and into the 21st, the Parker Brothers' version was created by Charles Darrow.
The history of the Monopoly game, so says Wikipedia, can be traced back to the early 1900s. In 1904, a Quaker woman named Elizabeth (Lizzie) J. Magie Phillips created a game through which she hoped to be able to explain the single tax theory of Henry George
(it was supposed to illustrate the negative aspects of concentrating land in private monopolies). Her game, The Landlord's Game, was commercially published a few years later. Other interested game players redeveloped the game and some made their own sets. Lizzie herself patented a revised edition of the game in 1904, and similar games were published commercially.
I'd certainly hope this reminiscence draws out a collector of early Monopoly sets or Monopoly money. If you're such a collector, leave a comment here. I'd like to discuss your collection in an upcoming post.
Photography by just.Luc.
