September 8, 2026 • 21 mins
During the second half of the nineteenth century, the rise of industrialization and a gendered division of labor set the stage for tastemakers, architects, and social reformers to elevate the home parlor as a space for leisure and family gathering. Board game makers and marketers capitalized on these trends by peddling a certain exclusionary brand of the American dream.
In Family Game Night, Susan R. Asbury provides a history of US board games from the 1880s through the 1920s, the morals and tropes they conveyed, and the influence game designers and manufacturers had on consumers. Drawing from historical documents, marketing materials, patents, diaries, and photographs, Asbury shows how games incorporated and promoted concepts related to progress and abundance, including a clear delineation of the purported beneficiaries: white middle-class families. Asbury further analyzes box covers and game components to uncover the ways in which manufacturers and designers crafted narratives to maintain a sense of cultural hegemony in a rapidly changing society.
Through the imagery and instructions woven into the framework of play, Family Game Night reveals how these board games influenced players' values and associations, shaping their worldview.
In Family Game Night, Susan R. Asbury provides a history of US board games from the 1880s through the 1920s, the morals and tropes they conveyed, and the influence game designers and manufacturers had on consumers. Drawing from historical documents, marketing materials, patents, diaries, and photographs, Asbury shows how games incorporated and promoted concepts related to progress and abundance, including a clear delineation of the purported beneficiaries: white middle-class families. Asbury further analyzes box covers and game components to uncover the ways in which manufacturers and designers crafted narratives to maintain a sense of cultural hegemony in a rapidly changing society.
Through the imagery and instructions woven into the framework of play, Family Game Night reveals how these board games influenced players' values and associations, shaping their worldview.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Welcome back to In Between the Pages. This is Doug Hess,
and today we have a very special guest with us,
Susan R. Asbury, and she is here to talk about
her book, Family Game Night, Board Games from the Gilded
Age to the Roaring Twenties. Susan, welcome to In Between
the Pages.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Well, thank you. Thank you for having me. Excited to
be here.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Well, thank you for spending a few minutes out of
your busy schedule to be with us today to talk
about your book, Family Game Night, and as we always do,
we allow the author, we want to hear from the
author in their own words, what the book is about
to start off.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Well, the book is really a look at the early
decades of the American board game industry. There are a
couple of American produced board games before the Civil War,
but the industry itself really takes off after the Civil
War during sort of what you'd call the Second Industrial
Revolution or the Gilded Age, when there's all sorts of
new processes that allow for a prolific production of all
(01:13):
types of materials, and board games are among them. And
so I look at, because of the ability to produce
these games more cheaply and more affordably and quickly in color,
I take a look at sort of how that industry
emerges and the breadth and depth of the types of
(01:35):
games that are produced. And this is really from about
the 1880s to the 1920s is considered the golden age
of board games, in part because of the various quality
of the games. They almost look like pieces of art
and their box covers that they come in are also
very ornate. And I kind of, I will argue in
the book that these games represent this post-Civil War sort
(01:59):
of regeneration, this idea that there's this new industrial revolution
that's taking hold and that we're kind of, taste makers
will argue we're moving in a very progressive and sort
of abundance type way. And I look at these games
through about six different lenses. I look at games that
deal with religion, the frontier, geopolitics and war and diplomacy.
(02:25):
as well as race, gender, and class. And this idea
of abundance and progress is not for everyone. So sometimes
the game kind of draw parameters on who can access
these new commodities and this sort of new American dream,
if you will, after the Civil War.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Yeah, absolutely. You know, when I came across this book,
I was really intrigued by it, you know, looking at
from the Gilded Age to the Roaring Twenties. And so
my next question really is, what kind of prompted you
to write this book?
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Well, this book has been in the works for a
long time. So I started it when my youngest child
was around two or three, and he's now 16. And
I was inspired for a couple of reasons. One, I
was going back to school at Penn State to do
a PhD in American Studies. And before that, I had
(03:22):
previously spent about 10 years working in the museum field
and several of those working at the Strong National Museum
of Play in Rochester, New York, where I was actually
the doll curator of modern dolls. So Barbie to the present.
But I worked with curators of board games and other
types of toys and ephemera. And when I started taking
(03:42):
my classes at Penn State, I was. by chance assigned
a board game to talk about in one of my
19th century civilization classes. And from that, I was like, Oh,
I can look at these board games in such a
variety of ways. And there's a lot, I know where,
I know where they all, a bunch of them are
because of our collection of the strong. And that's really
kind of what put me on that track. And so I, um,
(04:05):
the project really kind of the particular, this book is a, um,
came out of my dissertation which it's very different from
my dissertation um but uh and i've revamped it quite
a bit but that's sort of where where it all began.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Oh that's great very very interesting you know the other
thing is you know we talk about family game night
um and i'll be honest with you maybe this is
just a perception that i had but you know when
i think of the gilded age and the roaring 20s
it's not something i i really think about them sitting
down playing games um I can't explain why that seems
(04:42):
odd to me, but it just does.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Sure. Yeah, I think that as.
As the Gilded Age emerges and that's when there's all
these new products being made and sort of new social
classes being defined, you start seeing middle managers and you
start seeing this new middle and upper class of these
middle managers and new professions like advertisers and marketers come
(05:08):
about as part of all this. And, um, tastemakers, you know, uh,
who are writing in magazines and so, so forth, they're
kind of looking around and they're saying, Hey, if you're
this new rich person or you're moved to the upper
middle class, you need to showcase things in your home and,
and buy materials that kind of, uh, speak to your
identity and board games get caught up in that and
(05:30):
become kind of signifiers of, of healthy family things you
can do in the parlor at night to kind of
retreat from that industrialization that's happening, um, as well. So that's,
that's how it kind of takes hold by the twenties.
You shifted from what I call the parlor to the
living room and it's a more relaxed space and it's
more about friends and family, uh, kind of, uh, coming together.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Well, um, maybe you could, uh, describe one or two
games that, um, they were playing during that time that
we don't necessarily, uh, still participate in today?
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Oh, there's a whole host. Yeah, sure. I'm happy to
do that. I think, let's see. Well, some of the
games that are not played today would be games about,
there's a lot of games about shopping. Oh, okay. And
we can draw some parallels, certainly, to games. I think
in the 1980s, there's a game about going to the mall.
(06:27):
But there's a lot of games about shopping in the
department store because the department store emerges during this time.
It starts a little bit before the Civil War, like 1850s,
but really takes off during this time. And so there's
a game called Playing Department Store where you... The game
board itself is the different divisions of the department store.
(06:49):
It kind of throws some groceries in there too. So
it's kind of combining two different things. Grocery stores don't
really emerge as we think of them until about 19-teens,
but it's putting some things together. And your goal is
to try to be the thriftiest, but also get the
items that are popular at the same time and kind
of beat your opponent to those items as well. So
(07:13):
that's a game that we don't, see now, but there
are probably some models of it that certainly come to
mind that have evolved over time as well. There are
a lot of games that deal with race relations, and
those are games that we don't see today. So, for example,
(07:35):
there are a lot of games that depict African-Americans in
very negative and racist ways, and mostly as targets for
So you're I'm talking about tabletop games, but there's our
little table tennis games to our table, 10 pins games
like bowling games that are part of this study. And
sometimes you're throwing objects at this caricatured person often through
(07:58):
their mouth. So they're really, really awful, racist games that
thankfully we don't have today. um, as well. So those are,
you know, some of the games that we don't, don't
think about, um, anymore that, that are kind of highlighted as, um,
and in the, the game chapter on race relations, I'm
(08:20):
talking about how many game manufacturers and designers decided like,
who were the beneficiaries of this idea of progress and abundance. And, um,
clearly African-Americans were not in these games. It's mostly African-American men.
Women are not depicted as often. And also there's board
games around Chinese Americans, indigenous Americans, kind of with the
(08:43):
same theme.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Now, there are obviously a few games that we still
play today, like checkers and chess. Was that as popular
back then? Or was that based on class? Like if
you were More educated, it was more chess. And if
you were a little lower class, was it more checkers?
Or were the games that really looked at based on economics?
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Sure. So checkers and chess have a much longer history
than this book, chess especially. It goes way back. But
I don't talk about those two games specifically very much
in the book because I'm looking at other types of
board game themes. However, I do see one of the
things I look at are sociological studies of what children
are playing with because sociology is an emerging field during
(09:32):
this time and psychology. And children always list checkers. And
as part of their games and their inventories in their
house of things they play. So checkers are still popular,
regardless of all the other games I'm talking about. Other
games that we see in this that I talk about
in the book that we still have would include the
(09:53):
Ouija board.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Oh, yep.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
So the Ouija board comes about in the 1890s. It's
really a nod to the spiritualist movement that's earlier in
the century there in the mid 1800s. And it's used
both as a playful toy, but also by people doing
seances as well as kind of ways to try to
talk to the dead. But Ouija comes about during this
(10:17):
time period and remains with us today. there's the game
that starts the Milton Bradley Company, which was one of
the main companies of this time period and is now
owned by Hasbro, along with the main competitor of Milton
Bradley is Parker Brothers, and Hasbro owns both of them now.
But Milton Bradley starts his company through a game called
the Checkered Game of Life, which is like a checkerboard,
(10:40):
but you're navigating life from infancy to happy old age
and picking up some points along the way. And a
variation of it would be today's Game of Life. Game
of Life was designed in 1960 on the 100th anniversary
of the company. And the guy who designed it says
that he did not consult the original. But there's still
(11:03):
some common themes that emerge if you look at both
of those side by side.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Now, Susan, during the writing and the research of this book,
anything really surprise you?
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Yes, like a couple of things. One, back to the
comments I've made about the chapter on race and race relations.
I knew those games existed from working as a Strong,
but I didn't quite understand the volume of them and
how long they lasted. I couldn't really get sales figures
because of the time period, but I could look at
(11:36):
trade catalogs and trade magazines and then regular magazines of
the time period that are selling them. And so they last,
you know, Some of them go a little bit beyond
this time period that I'm studying, but they last for
quite a while. And I didn't really understand, I didn't really,
I learned more about the volume of those. And then
(11:57):
I would also say there are so many games about
the Spanish-American War, which is a very short war in 1898.
It lasts from roughly April until July. I think the
treaty signed in August. And I would argue that that
war appears in the war games that you see the
(12:23):
most up until World War II. There's probably more war
games of the Spanish-American War aside from World War II,
which is kind of shocking because it's not a very
long conflict. But it was at this time when there
were reporters on the ground sending information to the newspapers.
There's some yellow journalism going on, so it's a little sensationalized,
and you've got these board game designers kind of picking up,
(12:45):
reading the room and seeing what's popular, and they're creating
all these games.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Absolutely. Now, was most of the games that were created
pretty simple, or were they complex? How would you describe those?
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Both. A lot of them... So this is before the
age of putting... age groups or age ranges on games.
So it predates that. Though you do sometimes see magazines
that will shed some light on that, magazine articles. But
I think that a lot of the games are what
(13:22):
board game scholars would call race games, meaning you start
at one point and you're trying to be the first
or last to get to the end point of the game.
A lot of them are simple like that, that could
be played by a variety of people in the same
family or in the same home. There are some strategy games.
Checker Game of Life uses both luck and strategy to
(13:42):
kind of navigate the board and accumulate points. The game
of the Landlord's Game, which is early 1900s game invented
by Lizzie Maggie. That's the precursor to Monopoly. And she
was really... she's the true founder of monopoly, even though
Charles Darrow gets the credit for it, uh, because that's
(14:03):
the game that he popularizes. Uh, but she was really
trying to teach sort of the evils of monopoly and, uh,
trying to teach, uh, what's called single tax theory, which
was written by an economist named Henry George in the
late 18, uh, seventies. He writes a book called progress
and poverty. That's quite popular. And she was sort of
adherent to that idea. And it's this idea that, um,
(14:25):
the government should finance all its projects on a single,
only one tax. And it's taxed on unimproved, just the
land as its land value. And so she's trying to
teach that through this board game. But in doing so,
she comes up with the idea that you circuit, you
go around the board, the same board multiple times. And
that's kind of a new thing at the time period.
(14:47):
There weren't really games where you kept going around the
board like that. And then that game will eventually become Monopoly.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Very, very interesting. Really, just some overall general, your thoughts
on a few games. What is maybe the strangest game
you ever came across?
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Oh, it's a game called Feeding the Alligators from 1913.
And it's both strange and terrible. It's kind of clinging
to an urban... what folklorists believe to be an urban legend.
But it is a game where there are alligators and
(15:29):
you put African-American babies in the mouth of the alligator
to try. It's almost like a Hungry, Hungry Hippo game,
if you've ever played it. And it's this idea that
enslavers would use African-American babies to bait alligators to kill them.
And it's sort of a folk game. urban legend, but
(15:51):
it's really awful. It's a super awful game. And I,
I knew about, there are other pieces of ephemera and
popular culture that feature African-American babies and they're referred to
as alligator bait in those images. And so I knew,
but I wasn't really aware of the game until I
found it and I've never seen the game. I've only
(16:13):
seen the advertisements for it. So I think, There might
be one museum in the country where I saw a
video of what looks like a piece of the game
that they may have in their collection, and I tried
to contact them, but I didn't hear back from them. But, yeah,
it's a really awful and, like, jarring game. Like, I
had no idea. I didn't even.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Think that was a great idea to even market or
even give a good right to, but different times, completely
different times, I think the best, except Is there a
game that is no longer popular that you thought would
be kind of interesting today that people would like?
Speaker 2 (16:51):
I do think the Landlord's Game in its original form
might be popular today. The way that Maggie designed that game...
I mean, you could certainly see the similarities to Monopoly,
but she designed it with Monopoly rules and single tax rules.
So that's kind of an interesting concept to be able
(17:12):
to kind of switch the rules up to help players
kind of figure out kind of financial stuff. So that's
kind of an interesting concept that I think might be interesting.
A game that I think that... exist as card game
a card game only today that would be interesting is
(17:32):
the old maid games there's a whole host of old
maid board games and not that i necessarily would promote
the ideas around that but it's just kind of an
interesting for people who grew up like myself playing the
old maid card game which was a family favorite of
me and my cousins would go to an aunt's house
every summer overnight we always played old maid um I
(17:54):
just think it's kind of interesting to see that game
as a board game and people might find that fascinating
as well.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Yeah, absolutely. I remember as a kid, uh, playing that occasionally.
And I know my sister and her cousins with, or
our cousins would play that as well. Uh, in terms
of that, um, any game, I know we're running closer
on time. And so one last question, uh, is there,
is there a game that, uh, you would, um, suggest
(18:22):
that maybe we haven't covered that you think was kind
of interesting and would be interesting to our listeners? Or
maybe that was out there that you came across?
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Oh, there's several. Let me think. I... I'm kind of
fascinated with the games that talk about the frontier. And
they talk about it in a variety of ways. Some
of them are leaning on the chapter of race relations
where it's about driving out the indigenous people, either through
(18:55):
capturing the buffalo and kind of driving them out or
through skirmishes for settlement. But as you kind of move
into the 1900s and the West is more settled, there
are these games where you're traveling to the West. And
I think that those are kind of fascinating. And there's
(19:16):
one about going to the old homestead where you're an
urban person and you're going to the farm. And in
the game, the people who are arriving, they're on the
board and they're clearly dressed in their fancy clothes and
they're going to the farm and they're having to milk
the cows and deal with the chickens. And I think
that's kind of an interesting way to play out a
board game about a trip. a trip to the homestead.
(19:39):
And then there's one about the horseless care. It's called
the horseless carriage and it's pre pre-automobile but they're riding
in what becomes the later will become an automobile and
it's pretty fascinating because you're traveling the country and this
and you're you're out running a bicycle in the box
cover uh the game box cover uh so of course
uh which is another popular item at this time period
(20:02):
the the bicycle right and um you're out running it
and there's a woman driving the which is kind of
unusual compared to some of the other games that depict gender.
And the man is kind of waving at everybody as
he travels. But, you know, you get to where you
go based on how reliable your vehicle is. So, like,
you may roll the dice and you've got a flat tire,
(20:23):
so it's going to take you longer, that type stuff.
That's kind of emulating what's happening out in the world
for people who can't yet drive or don't have access
to that kind of horseless carriage yet. So I think
that those are kind of, you know, fascinating games. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Absolutely. Well, Susan, thank you so much for coming on
and spending a few minutes with us. To our listeners,
please go out and get a copy of Family Game Night,
Board Games from the Gilded Age to the Roaring Twenties.
Kind of fascinating. I learned so much and it was
great speaking with you, Susan. Also want to give a
shout out to the University Press of Kentucky, who is
(21:00):
your publisher. Thank you for sending us a copy of
the book. And again, Susan, I can't thank you enough
for coming on. spending some time with us and to
our listeners, please go out, grab the book, Family Game Night,
board games from the Gilded Age to the Roaring Twenties.
You're not going to be disappointed.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Thank you. Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Thank you.
Welcome back to In Between the Pages. This is Doug Hess,
and today we have a very special guest with us,
Susan R. Asbury, and she is here to talk about
her book, Family Game Night, Board Games from the Gilded
Age to the Roaring Twenties. Susan, welcome to In Between
the Pages.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Well, thank you. Thank you for having me. Excited to
be here.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Well, thank you for spending a few minutes out of
your busy schedule to be with us today to talk
about your book, Family Game Night, and as we always do,
we allow the author, we want to hear from the
author in their own words, what the book is about
to start off.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Well, the book is really a look at the early
decades of the American board game industry. There are a
couple of American produced board games before the Civil War,
but the industry itself really takes off after the Civil
War during sort of what you'd call the Second Industrial
Revolution or the Gilded Age, when there's all sorts of
new processes that allow for a prolific production of all
(01:13):
types of materials, and board games are among them. And
so I look at, because of the ability to produce
these games more cheaply and more affordably and quickly in color,
I take a look at sort of how that industry
emerges and the breadth and depth of the types of
(01:35):
games that are produced. And this is really from about
the 1880s to the 1920s is considered the golden age
of board games, in part because of the various quality
of the games. They almost look like pieces of art
and their box covers that they come in are also
very ornate. And I kind of, I will argue in
the book that these games represent this post-Civil War sort
(01:59):
of regeneration, this idea that there's this new industrial revolution
that's taking hold and that we're kind of, taste makers
will argue we're moving in a very progressive and sort
of abundance type way. And I look at these games
through about six different lenses. I look at games that
deal with religion, the frontier, geopolitics and war and diplomacy.
(02:25):
as well as race, gender, and class. And this idea
of abundance and progress is not for everyone. So sometimes
the game kind of draw parameters on who can access
these new commodities and this sort of new American dream,
if you will, after the Civil War.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Yeah, absolutely. You know, when I came across this book,
I was really intrigued by it, you know, looking at
from the Gilded Age to the Roaring Twenties. And so
my next question really is, what kind of prompted you
to write this book?
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Well, this book has been in the works for a
long time. So I started it when my youngest child
was around two or three, and he's now 16. And
I was inspired for a couple of reasons. One, I
was going back to school at Penn State to do
a PhD in American Studies. And before that, I had
(03:22):
previously spent about 10 years working in the museum field
and several of those working at the Strong National Museum
of Play in Rochester, New York, where I was actually
the doll curator of modern dolls. So Barbie to the present.
But I worked with curators of board games and other
types of toys and ephemera. And when I started taking
(03:42):
my classes at Penn State, I was. by chance assigned
a board game to talk about in one of my
19th century civilization classes. And from that, I was like, Oh,
I can look at these board games in such a
variety of ways. And there's a lot, I know where,
I know where they all, a bunch of them are
because of our collection of the strong. And that's really
kind of what put me on that track. And so I, um,
(04:05):
the project really kind of the particular, this book is a, um,
came out of my dissertation which it's very different from
my dissertation um but uh and i've revamped it quite
a bit but that's sort of where where it all began.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Oh that's great very very interesting you know the other
thing is you know we talk about family game night
um and i'll be honest with you maybe this is
just a perception that i had but you know when
i think of the gilded age and the roaring 20s
it's not something i i really think about them sitting
down playing games um I can't explain why that seems
(04:42):
odd to me, but it just does.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Sure. Yeah, I think that as.
As the Gilded Age emerges and that's when there's all
these new products being made and sort of new social
classes being defined, you start seeing middle managers and you
start seeing this new middle and upper class of these
middle managers and new professions like advertisers and marketers come
(05:08):
about as part of all this. And, um, tastemakers, you know, uh,
who are writing in magazines and so, so forth, they're
kind of looking around and they're saying, Hey, if you're
this new rich person or you're moved to the upper
middle class, you need to showcase things in your home and,
and buy materials that kind of, uh, speak to your
identity and board games get caught up in that and
(05:30):
become kind of signifiers of, of healthy family things you
can do in the parlor at night to kind of
retreat from that industrialization that's happening, um, as well. So that's,
that's how it kind of takes hold by the twenties.
You shifted from what I call the parlor to the
living room and it's a more relaxed space and it's
more about friends and family, uh, kind of, uh, coming together.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Well, um, maybe you could, uh, describe one or two
games that, um, they were playing during that time that
we don't necessarily, uh, still participate in today?
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Oh, there's a whole host. Yeah, sure. I'm happy to
do that. I think, let's see. Well, some of the
games that are not played today would be games about,
there's a lot of games about shopping. Oh, okay. And
we can draw some parallels, certainly, to games. I think
in the 1980s, there's a game about going to the mall.
(06:27):
But there's a lot of games about shopping in the
department store because the department store emerges during this time.
It starts a little bit before the Civil War, like 1850s,
but really takes off during this time. And so there's
a game called Playing Department Store where you... The game
board itself is the different divisions of the department store.
(06:49):
It kind of throws some groceries in there too. So
it's kind of combining two different things. Grocery stores don't
really emerge as we think of them until about 19-teens,
but it's putting some things together. And your goal is
to try to be the thriftiest, but also get the
items that are popular at the same time and kind
of beat your opponent to those items as well. So
(07:13):
that's a game that we don't, see now, but there
are probably some models of it that certainly come to
mind that have evolved over time as well. There are
a lot of games that deal with race relations, and
those are games that we don't see today. So, for example,
(07:35):
there are a lot of games that depict African-Americans in
very negative and racist ways, and mostly as targets for
So you're I'm talking about tabletop games, but there's our
little table tennis games to our table, 10 pins games
like bowling games that are part of this study. And
sometimes you're throwing objects at this caricatured person often through
(07:58):
their mouth. So they're really, really awful, racist games that
thankfully we don't have today. um, as well. So those are,
you know, some of the games that we don't, don't
think about, um, anymore that, that are kind of highlighted as, um,
and in the, the game chapter on race relations, I'm
(08:20):
talking about how many game manufacturers and designers decided like,
who were the beneficiaries of this idea of progress and abundance. And, um,
clearly African-Americans were not in these games. It's mostly African-American men.
Women are not depicted as often. And also there's board
games around Chinese Americans, indigenous Americans, kind of with the
(08:43):
same theme.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Now, there are obviously a few games that we still
play today, like checkers and chess. Was that as popular
back then? Or was that based on class? Like if
you were More educated, it was more chess. And if
you were a little lower class, was it more checkers?
Or were the games that really looked at based on economics?
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Sure. So checkers and chess have a much longer history
than this book, chess especially. It goes way back. But
I don't talk about those two games specifically very much
in the book because I'm looking at other types of
board game themes. However, I do see one of the
things I look at are sociological studies of what children
are playing with because sociology is an emerging field during
(09:32):
this time and psychology. And children always list checkers. And
as part of their games and their inventories in their
house of things they play. So checkers are still popular,
regardless of all the other games I'm talking about. Other
games that we see in this that I talk about
in the book that we still have would include the
(09:53):
Ouija board.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Oh, yep.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
So the Ouija board comes about in the 1890s. It's
really a nod to the spiritualist movement that's earlier in
the century there in the mid 1800s. And it's used
both as a playful toy, but also by people doing
seances as well as kind of ways to try to
talk to the dead. But Ouija comes about during this
(10:17):
time period and remains with us today. there's the game
that starts the Milton Bradley Company, which was one of
the main companies of this time period and is now
owned by Hasbro, along with the main competitor of Milton
Bradley is Parker Brothers, and Hasbro owns both of them now.
But Milton Bradley starts his company through a game called
the Checkered Game of Life, which is like a checkerboard,
(10:40):
but you're navigating life from infancy to happy old age
and picking up some points along the way. And a
variation of it would be today's Game of Life. Game
of Life was designed in 1960 on the 100th anniversary
of the company. And the guy who designed it says
that he did not consult the original. But there's still
(11:03):
some common themes that emerge if you look at both
of those side by side.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Now, Susan, during the writing and the research of this book,
anything really surprise you?
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Yes, like a couple of things. One, back to the
comments I've made about the chapter on race and race relations.
I knew those games existed from working as a Strong,
but I didn't quite understand the volume of them and
how long they lasted. I couldn't really get sales figures
because of the time period, but I could look at
(11:36):
trade catalogs and trade magazines and then regular magazines of
the time period that are selling them. And so they last,
you know, Some of them go a little bit beyond
this time period that I'm studying, but they last for
quite a while. And I didn't really understand, I didn't really,
I learned more about the volume of those. And then
(11:57):
I would also say there are so many games about
the Spanish-American War, which is a very short war in 1898.
It lasts from roughly April until July. I think the
treaty signed in August. And I would argue that that
war appears in the war games that you see the
(12:23):
most up until World War II. There's probably more war
games of the Spanish-American War aside from World War II,
which is kind of shocking because it's not a very
long conflict. But it was at this time when there
were reporters on the ground sending information to the newspapers.
There's some yellow journalism going on, so it's a little sensationalized,
and you've got these board game designers kind of picking up,
(12:45):
reading the room and seeing what's popular, and they're creating
all these games.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Absolutely. Now, was most of the games that were created
pretty simple, or were they complex? How would you describe those?
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Both. A lot of them... So this is before the
age of putting... age groups or age ranges on games.
So it predates that. Though you do sometimes see magazines
that will shed some light on that, magazine articles. But
I think that a lot of the games are what
(13:22):
board game scholars would call race games, meaning you start
at one point and you're trying to be the first
or last to get to the end point of the game.
A lot of them are simple like that, that could
be played by a variety of people in the same
family or in the same home. There are some strategy games.
Checker Game of Life uses both luck and strategy to
(13:42):
kind of navigate the board and accumulate points. The game
of the Landlord's Game, which is early 1900s game invented
by Lizzie Maggie. That's the precursor to Monopoly. And she
was really... she's the true founder of monopoly, even though
Charles Darrow gets the credit for it, uh, because that's
(14:03):
the game that he popularizes. Uh, but she was really
trying to teach sort of the evils of monopoly and, uh,
trying to teach, uh, what's called single tax theory, which
was written by an economist named Henry George in the
late 18, uh, seventies. He writes a book called progress
and poverty. That's quite popular. And she was sort of
adherent to that idea. And it's this idea that, um,
(14:25):
the government should finance all its projects on a single,
only one tax. And it's taxed on unimproved, just the
land as its land value. And so she's trying to
teach that through this board game. But in doing so,
she comes up with the idea that you circuit, you
go around the board, the same board multiple times. And
that's kind of a new thing at the time period.
(14:47):
There weren't really games where you kept going around the
board like that. And then that game will eventually become Monopoly.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Very, very interesting. Really, just some overall general, your thoughts
on a few games. What is maybe the strangest game
you ever came across?
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Oh, it's a game called Feeding the Alligators from 1913.
And it's both strange and terrible. It's kind of clinging
to an urban... what folklorists believe to be an urban legend.
But it is a game where there are alligators and
(15:29):
you put African-American babies in the mouth of the alligator
to try. It's almost like a Hungry, Hungry Hippo game,
if you've ever played it. And it's this idea that
enslavers would use African-American babies to bait alligators to kill them.
And it's sort of a folk game. urban legend, but
(15:51):
it's really awful. It's a super awful game. And I,
I knew about, there are other pieces of ephemera and
popular culture that feature African-American babies and they're referred to
as alligator bait in those images. And so I knew,
but I wasn't really aware of the game until I
found it and I've never seen the game. I've only
(16:13):
seen the advertisements for it. So I think, There might
be one museum in the country where I saw a
video of what looks like a piece of the game
that they may have in their collection, and I tried
to contact them, but I didn't hear back from them. But, yeah,
it's a really awful and, like, jarring game. Like, I
had no idea. I didn't even.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Think that was a great idea to even market or
even give a good right to, but different times, completely
different times, I think the best, except Is there a
game that is no longer popular that you thought would
be kind of interesting today that people would like?
Speaker 2 (16:51):
I do think the Landlord's Game in its original form
might be popular today. The way that Maggie designed that game...
I mean, you could certainly see the similarities to Monopoly,
but she designed it with Monopoly rules and single tax rules.
So that's kind of an interesting concept to be able
(17:12):
to kind of switch the rules up to help players
kind of figure out kind of financial stuff. So that's
kind of an interesting concept that I think might be interesting.
A game that I think that... exist as card game
a card game only today that would be interesting is
(17:32):
the old maid games there's a whole host of old
maid board games and not that i necessarily would promote
the ideas around that but it's just kind of an
interesting for people who grew up like myself playing the
old maid card game which was a family favorite of
me and my cousins would go to an aunt's house
every summer overnight we always played old maid um I
(17:54):
just think it's kind of interesting to see that game
as a board game and people might find that fascinating
as well.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Yeah, absolutely. I remember as a kid, uh, playing that occasionally.
And I know my sister and her cousins with, or
our cousins would play that as well. Uh, in terms
of that, um, any game, I know we're running closer
on time. And so one last question, uh, is there,
is there a game that, uh, you would, um, suggest
(18:22):
that maybe we haven't covered that you think was kind
of interesting and would be interesting to our listeners? Or
maybe that was out there that you came across?
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Oh, there's several. Let me think. I... I'm kind of
fascinated with the games that talk about the frontier. And
they talk about it in a variety of ways. Some
of them are leaning on the chapter of race relations
where it's about driving out the indigenous people, either through
(18:55):
capturing the buffalo and kind of driving them out or
through skirmishes for settlement. But as you kind of move
into the 1900s and the West is more settled, there
are these games where you're traveling to the West. And
I think that those are kind of fascinating. And there's
(19:16):
one about going to the old homestead where you're an
urban person and you're going to the farm. And in
the game, the people who are arriving, they're on the
board and they're clearly dressed in their fancy clothes and
they're going to the farm and they're having to milk
the cows and deal with the chickens. And I think
that's kind of an interesting way to play out a
board game about a trip. a trip to the homestead.
(19:39):
And then there's one about the horseless care. It's called
the horseless carriage and it's pre pre-automobile but they're riding
in what becomes the later will become an automobile and
it's pretty fascinating because you're traveling the country and this
and you're you're out running a bicycle in the box
cover uh the game box cover uh so of course
uh which is another popular item at this time period
(20:02):
the the bicycle right and um you're out running it
and there's a woman driving the which is kind of
unusual compared to some of the other games that depict gender.
And the man is kind of waving at everybody as
he travels. But, you know, you get to where you
go based on how reliable your vehicle is. So, like,
you may roll the dice and you've got a flat tire,
(20:23):
so it's going to take you longer, that type stuff.
That's kind of emulating what's happening out in the world
for people who can't yet drive or don't have access
to that kind of horseless carriage yet. So I think
that those are kind of, you know, fascinating games. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Absolutely. Well, Susan, thank you so much for coming on
and spending a few minutes with us. To our listeners,
please go out and get a copy of Family Game Night,
Board Games from the Gilded Age to the Roaring Twenties.
Kind of fascinating. I learned so much and it was
great speaking with you, Susan. Also want to give a
shout out to the University Press of Kentucky, who is
(21:00):
your publisher. Thank you for sending us a copy of
the book. And again, Susan, I can't thank you enough
for coming on. spending some time with us and to
our listeners, please go out, grab the book, Family Game Night,
board games from the Gilded Age to the Roaring Twenties.
You're not going to be disappointed.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Thank you. Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Thank you.
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