{"id":30340,"date":"2015-02-22T05:00:37","date_gmt":"2015-02-22T10:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=30340"},"modified":"2021-09-17T15:45:48","modified_gmt":"2021-09-17T19:45:48","slug":"the-forgotten-history-of-the-game-of-monopoly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2015\/02\/22\/the-forgotten-history-of-the-game-of-monopoly\/","title":{"rendered":"The forgotten history of the game of Monopoly<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

At Open Culture<\/em>, Dan Colman<\/a> looks at how Monopoly<\/em> evolved and changed before it became a fixture in children’s games, despite the intent of the original designer:<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

The great capitalist game of Monopoly<\/em> was first marketed by Parker Brothers back in February 1935, right in the middle of the Great Depression. Even during hard times, Americans could still imagine amassing a fortune and securing a monopoly on the real estate market. When it comes to making money, Americans never run out of optimism and hope.<\/p>\n

Monopoly<\/em> didn\u2019t really begin, however, in 1935. And if you trace back the origins of the game, you\u2019ll encounter an ironic, curious tale. The story goes like this: Elizabeth (Lizzie) J. Magie Phillips (1866\u20131948), a disciple of the progressive era economist Henry George, created the prototype for Monopoly<\/em> in 1903. And she did so with the goal of illustrating the problems associated with concentrating land in private monopolies. As Mary Pilon, the author of the new book The Monopolists: Obsession, Fury, and the Scandal Behind the World\u2019s Favorite Board Game<\/em>, recently explained in The New York Times<\/em>, the original game \u2014 The Landlord\u2019s Game<\/em> \u2014 came with two sets of rules: \u201can anti-monopolist set in which all were rewarded when wealth was created, and a monopolist set in which the goal was to create monopolies and crush opponents.\u201d Phillips\u2019 approach, Pilon adds, \u201cwas a teaching tool meant to demonstrate that the first set of rules was morally superior.\u201d In other words, the original game of Monopoly<\/em> was created as a critique of monopolies \u2014 something the trust- and monopoly-busting president, Theodore Roosevelt, could relate to.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For more on the modern game, here’s the Wikipedia<\/em> page<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Monopoly<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At Open Culture, Dan Colman looks at how Monopoly evolved and changed before it became a fixture in children’s games, despite the intent of the original designer: The great capitalist game of Monopoly was first marketed by Parker Brothers back in February 1935, right in the middle of the Great Depression. Even during hard times, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[831,25,14],"tags":[1439,469],"class_list":["post-30340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-economics","category-gaming","tag-boardgames","tag-monopolies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-7Tm","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30340"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30340\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68396,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30340\/revisions\/68396"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}