![]() ![]() “Boardwalk had the beach, and its clubs - its Club Harlem. The producers consulted her library for details, by the way. It was the era of Boardwalk Empire - the HBO show set in Atlantic City. The Boardwalk had famous hotels and jazz clubs and gangsters. Jacqueline says Atlantic City was in a heyday in the 1930s. WSHU Public Radio Jacquline Silver-Marillo unwraps an early version of the Monopoly board at the Atlantic City Free Public Library. That makes this spot the intersection between the two most expensive properties on the Monopoly board. I find - on the boardwalk - a green street sign that says Park Place. There are shops selling chintzy t-shirts and souvenirs. ![]() Many once housed casinos that started to spring up in the 1970s.ĭuring a beautiful Saturday afternoon in the middle of the summer, the boardwalk is crowded with families and groups of friends. The shoreline is dominated by high-rise buildings. But Atlantic City has - except for the famous boardwalk. The Monopoly board hasn’t changed much since the Parker Brothers game debuted. But Darrow got credit as the game’s inventor. Mary says no one knows why Elizabeth Magie’s patent was ignored. He learned the game from an Atlantic City resident, then sold his slightly modified version to Parker Brothers in 1934. They add Atlantic City property names - because like other players at the time, they wanted it to mimic their community.”Īn original (circular) Monopoly board designed by Charles Darrow.Ī bunch of game designers tried to sell their own versions - despite Magie’s patent - including Charles Darrow. “The Atlantic City Quakers make some modifications to make it easier to play with kids,” Mary says. “And Atlantic City in the late 1920s and early 1930s is kind of like New York and Philly, a hub for immigrants, thinkers, religions, et cetera,” she says.Īmong them, members of the Society of Friends - Quakers. That’s how the game found its way to the New Jersey shore. One area where it spread was in the northeast - among what Mary calls a who’s-who of left-wing America. “You would make your own version of the landlord’s game and you would infuse the properties in your area, community as you were playing it.” Mary says Magie’s game spread around the U.S. “And it’s the monopolist version of her game that really starts to take off, which I’ve always thought was fascinating - you have these people who were anti-monopolist in their political practices, but when it comes to the game they want to play, they’re very interested in clobbering each other,” she says. And the Georgist way, where the goal was to work together and share resources so everyone had enough to get by. The monopolist way - like the version we know today, where you gather up as much property as you can and other players pay you rent. And there were a lot of questions around, how should that be distributed? How should we tax people?” she says.Įlizabeth Magie set the game up so you could play it two ways. There was this amount of wealth being created in this country that hadn’t really occurred in that way. “You see the railroads - in 1904, the railroad barons were a huge news story. And Magie put something else on her board game as a form of social commentary. Georgists liked the idea of having lots of shared public spaces. Instead of free parking, cars weren’t as big of a deal in 1904, so you have ‘free park.’” “The circular design, you go around and around. “And when you look at the board, you see a lot of today’s Monopoly board in it,” Pilon says. Georgism is kind of complicated - but it’s the idea that land should belong equally to everyone. Magie used one of those games to promote an economic ideology called Georgism, named after Henry George, a 19th-century economist and social reformer. “And she was very outspoken at a time when that wasn’t quite accepted by the mainstream as a thing that women should do. She wrote poetry and short stories, and performed in theatrical plays. She was an early advocate for womens’ suffrage and racial equality. Magie was born into an abolitionist family in Illinois. ![]() “Liz Magie was a really fascinating person,” she says. Bloomsbury Elizabeth Magie's Landlord's Game.
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