“Who is the inventor of Monopoly?”

 

You could go on google chrome and search “the inventor of Monopoly?” and you’ll get an answer of Charles Darrow. But, the real mind behind this famous game which has just celebrated its 80th anniversary, is a woman known as Elizabeth Maggie. When Maggie was a young girl, her father, who she looked up to greatly, exposed her, at a very young age, to “progressive, anti-capitalist writings and attitudes”. TheGuardian even mentioned that Maggie’s two sets of rules were “an 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.” After, her exposure, Maggie started to design board games which she related to a book that her father said to read called “Progress and Poverty” which was published in 1879 and one of the best – selling books created by Henry George.

Maggie made her game illustrating the both sides of monopoly, anti – monopolist and monopolist. Her game was taken out to the public and “tested” then six years later she patented her game. While she only earned 500$ when selling her game, she was contented as the money was never her goal. She wanted it to be a “present system of land-grabbing with all its usual outcomes and consequences” she would say. Different versions of her board game started to go around schools, colleges and communities around 1920’s and the early 1930’s. And, according to LEMELSON CENTER for the Study of Invention and Innovation, this is where the story takes a turn as “Edward Dodson relays it: “The game was introduced by Eugene (Colonel) and Ruth Raiford…to Charles Todd, who lived in Germantown, PA; and Charles Todd then introduced the game to Charles and Esther Darrow. Eugene Raiford, Charles Todd and Esther Jones Darrow all attended the Quaker West town School from 1911 to 1914 or 1915. The subsequent connection with Atlantic City occurred because of the close association of the West town School with the Atlantic City Friends’ School. As Todd later recalled: ‘The first people we taught it to after learning it … was Darrow and his wife Esther …. Darrow asked me if I would write up the rules and regulations and I wrote them up…and gave them to Darrow.’””. After this, Darrow started to making his own version of Maggie’s game saying he tweaked it a bit, but there seemed to be no difference, he even wrote the same road names and misspelling of Marvin Gardens, he wrote Marven instead just like Maggie’s game. He didn’t even put street names of where he lived in Philadelphia.

Darrow took it to the next step when he sold it to the Parker Brothers. And, from then on, the copies sold hundreds of millions of copies around the world with Darrow’s name all over the place. Sadly, no one knew about the real story. About Elizabeth Maggie. The Parker Brothers only gave 500$ to Maggie without any royalties. Just now, after all those decades, we’ve been deceived. Just now, people are starting to know it was Elizabeth Maggie Philips invention.

1 decade = 10 years

8 decades = 80 years

80 years = 29, 919 days

29,219 days = 701,265 hours

701,265 hours = 42, 076, 800 minutes

42, 076, 800 minutes until they realised who the real mind behind monopoly was.

Monopoly:

If you have the same coloured properties, the whole set, then you have the opportunities to buy a house. When you buy an amount of houses, you need to divide between all your properties. When you have 4 houses on each of your full set then you could buy hotels. When another player lands on your property with house or hotels then that player would have to pay you with money reaching the roof. When you don’t want to buy a property you have to auction it. When you auction a property you have to start at 10$. You win when everyone except yourself goes bankrupt.

Elizabeth Maggie Philips would have earned thousands of dollars if people knew the truth and gave proper credit to her. Even though Maggie never aimed to earn a lot of money, she didn’t deserve what she got.