History of Monopoly

Monopoly officially started as a game called The Landlord's Game. It was patented in 1904 by Lizzie Magie.  The game was one of the first games that used a continuous path, that means that there were no distinct start and end space. Even though the game was patented, it only existed in homemade versions until it was manufactured in 1906. Magie and two others started the Economic Game Company of New York. In 1910 Magie submitted her game to Parker Brothers, but George Parker refused to publish it. It was eventually published in the United Kingdom by the new company, Brer Fox an' Brer Rabbit. Shortly after Scott Nearing, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, started using the game to teach classes. 

A new version of the game arose in the 1910s. This game was a shorter version than Magie's because it took out the second round of play. It was known as Auction Monopoly. Magie moved to the Washington D.C. area and got a new patent for her game since the previous one had expired. This time she added named streets to The Landlord's Game. She named a  couple of the streets after real life streets in Chicago. This version of the game also made the rule that higher rent had to be paid if all three railroads and utilities were owned. She also had chips inserted into the game so that they could signify improvements made to properties. Magie again tried to get Parker Brothers to publish her game and again she was denied. 

In the 1920s the game became popular in Reading, Pennsylvania. Former students of Scott Nearing would teach the game to their fraternity at Williams College. They tried to sell copies of the game, but were advised by an attorney not to since it was patented already. In 1932, Daniel Layman, one of the fraternity brothers, brought the game to Indianapolis, Indiana and made a version of the game called The Fascinating Game of Finance. The properties in that game were based on the streets of Indianapolis. The version Layman produces was the first version of the game to use four railroads and chance and community chest cards. 

One of the first Monopoly boxes

While in Indianapolis, Ruth Hoskins learned about the game and took it back home with her to Atlantic City, New Jersey. She made her own version of the game and used streets from Atlantic City. Charles Todd learned about the game in Atlantic City and he taught it to Esther Darrow, the wife of Chalres Darrow, the eventual creator of Monopoly. Darrow first made the original games of monopoly by hand with the help of his son, William Darrow. Their sets had all the original places that Charles Todd's version had and even included the infamous misspelling of Marvin Gardens. After demand for the game increased, he started looking for a printing company to help him with the game. Darrow had the game copyrighted in 1933.

Darrow first took the game to Milton Bradley, but they rejected it on May 31, 1934. He then sent it to Parker Brothers, but they rejected it saying, "it was too complicated, too technical, and it took too long to play." In 1935, they heard about the success of the sales for the game and they scheduled a new meeting in 1935. They decided to buy the game and took out a patent on it. They also bought Magie's version of the game and all other versions so that they could say that they had complete control over it. On the original version of the game there were no icons for community chest or luxury tax spaces. 

Since the beginning of Monopoly, it has become a Worldwide phenomenon. There are over 2000 different versions of the game and $67.7 billion worth of monopoly money is printed each year. It has also available in 43 countries and in 111 languages. There have also been countless video games, computer games, and even a game show based off of the popular board game.