![]() An unemployed family man with an ailing child who was trying to survive in the midst of the Depression, Darrow was given a copy of the game by a friend, sneakily enlisted another pal to illustrate it (for free), and sold the reinvented product to a sinking Parker Brothers as his own (for $7,000 plus residuals), subsequently amassing a fortune. The man who ultimately received the credit for creating Monopoly is a Pennsylvanian named Charles Darrow, not an inventor, but an opportunist. The classic floppy-boot game piece, for instance, was a product of the Great Depression, when such down-and-out footwear was a common sight. Through the evolution of Monopoly, Pilon explores not only forgotten stories like Magie’s, but the economic and political shifts brought about by the stock market crash, World War II, and Watergate-revealing how these changes were eventually reflected in the game itself. Particularly in a time before the Internet, a game was a key currency of communication, a teaching tool, a grassroots piece of entertainment, a method by which people could relate to one another, and a living artifact upon which players left their imprints. ![]() The Landlord’s Game, Magie believed, would help make the world a better place. She included two sets of rules: one in which the aim was to crush opponents through monopolies, and one in which the creation of wealth rewarded all. The invention Magie wanted to patent, was, in fact, a kind of tribute to George: The Landlord’s Game was “a practical demonstration of the present system of land-grabbing with all its usual outcomes and consequences,” Magie explained in The Single Tax Review in 1902. Lizzie Magie was an exception to the female norms of the time, not just because she had remained unmarried well beyond the conventional marry-by date, but also because she was an avid supporter of the teachings of progressive politician and economist Henry George, an outspoken and influential tax reformer who advocated policies that would keep more money in the hands of the poor and working class. Patent Office to secure her claim to a board game she had been diligently designing in the hours she stole from her day job as a stenographer. In March of 1903, a single woman in her late thirties walked into the U.S.
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