How a Girl Created a $1.4 Billion Empire by Reading a Book

This video is sponsored by Masterworks. Monopoly. It's a game you've probably played in one form or another. You might even have a copy or five in your board game collection. Invented by a man who had lost everything in the Great Depression, it managed to sell hundreds of copies to become the best-selling board game in the world with themed versions for almost every brand, from Stranger Things to The Lord of the Rings. A game so inspiring that countless imitations and scams were made. Or, at least, that's the lie you've probably heard. The Monopoly you know and love is an imitation.

The original game is a story of passion and perseverance of a woman who simply wanted to draw attention to the harms of monopolies, only to have her stolen from her by a man who became a millionaire. Before we move on to the next part of the video, we would like to quickly thank our sponsor, Masterworks. Founded by tech entrepreneurs who have founded multi-million dollar companies, Masterworks is the only alternative investment platform that allows you to invest in iconic multi-million dollar works of art from artists such as Banksy, Picasso and Basquiat. The platform acquires paintings worth between $1 million and $30 million and securitizes them, allowing investors to buy shares in works of art, just like buying shares of Tesla or Apple.

For centuries, the ultra-wealthy have used art to protect their wealth from inflation. So it's no surprise that The Wall Street Journal called the art market “one of the hottest markets in the world” and that contemporary art prices have outperformed the S&P by 174%. between 1995 and 2020. On top of that, the market is estimated to be worth $1.7 trillion and Deloitte projects it will grow another trillion in less than five years. In the past, the opportunity to invest in fine arts was reserved for the ultra-rich. Now, through Masterworks, anyone can set it up with just a few clicks. Simply visit their website, create an account, and then browse their paintings.

Then you can instantly diversify your investment portfolio with artwork. To date, some of Masterworks' offerings have sold out within hours. Join the platform now by clicking the link in the description below. And as always, in everything related to investment, you have to be careful. Nothing is risk-free. In the midst of the Great Depression, an unemployed salesman named Charles Darrow sat alone in his basement. He had a family to support, wife and children, but he had no job, no prospects, no money. Then, inspiration struck. If he couldn't support his family, maybe he could entertain them? Using a piece of oilcloth, he drew a board that featured squares that looked like streets and properties in Atlantic City.

He

created

a game in which players moved around, buying and selling land in an attempt to build a business

empire

and put their competitors out of business. Perhaps he could even bring back memories of better days before the Great Depression and conjure up fantasies of wealth and wealth. His family loved it and soon Charles decided to market the game. He sought out Parker Brothers, publishers of Tiddledy-winks, and Milton Bradley, publishers of The Checkered Game of Life, but both board game giants turned him down. So he did it himself. He made handmade copies of the board game himself and sold them by word of mouth.

It was only then that hard-pressed Parker Brothers stepped up and bought Charles's Monopoly. The game was an immediate hit, making them successful beyond their wildest dreams and becoming a devastating hit. When asked how he came up with the game, seemingly out of nowhere, Charles told the Philadelphia-based Germantown Bulletin newspaper: “It's a phenomenon. Totally unexpected and illogical.” That's the story that was hidden in every Monopoly box in the 1930s and for decades to come. The only problem is that it's a lie. Interested in this story? Do you want to know more about the most important brands that exist?

Make sure to like this video, subscribe to the channel, and hit the bell to stay updated on every new Hook video! The true story of the world's best-selling board game begins much earlier. In 1866, in Macomb, Illinois, Elizabeth Magie was born, daughter of Mary Jane Ritchie Magie, a homemaker, and James Magie, a newspaper publisher. James Magie had been politically involved during the American Civil War, toured with Abraham Lincoln during his presidential debates, and became a devout anti-monopolist. Antimonopolists worked against the centralization of industries under a single, powerful organization that had a monopoly. This fit James' personality as a progressive: he even supported the abolitionist movement, joining the Union army and recruiting others to the cause.

It certainly didn't help that James lived during the Gilded Age, a period of notorious corruption and “robber barons” like Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, who controlled monopolies in industries like steel and oil, and who grew rich in the face of the crisis. . widespread poverty. James had also earned a reputation for giving stirring political speeches to the general public. Elizabeth shared a strong bond with her father, who had taught her beliefs to her children from a young age in the hope that they would also fight for equality. James had even brought Elizabeth into her newsroom, introducing her to journalism at a young age.

Later in her life, she was quoted as saying: “I have often been called 'a chip off the old block,' which I consider a huge compliment, because I am proud of my father for being the kind of 'old block' that he is. ." Her childhood environment influenced James's political teachings. As a child, Elizabeth saw rich bosses and landowners living in luxury among working children wearing ragged clothes and poor farmers struggling to make ends meet. Magias suffered as a result of the Panic of 1873, a financial crisis that spread throughout the United States. At the age of 13, Elizabeth left school to help support her family and found a career at a stenographers' convention.

Furthering his beliefs with Elizabeth, James gave her a copy of economist Henry George's best-selling 1879

book

, Progress and Poverty. In his

book

, Henry detailed economic reforms that he believed would help society. Henry proposed that the government implement a “single tax” aimed specifically at land-grabbing landlords. It would allow workers to keep all the income they earned and only tax the property. Henry believed that the government's annual revenue from this tax would be so large that it could finance vast public works. The book resonated with Elizabeth, and she soon became one of Henry George's lifelong followers. A group that called themselves Georgists.

A few years later, Elizabeth landed a position at the Dead Letter Office, an undeliverable mail depot in Washington, D.C., as a stenographer and typist. At the time, these were specialized positions that involved the use of a typewriter and were opening up to women after the loss of so many men during the Civil War. Drawing on her experience as a typist, Elizabeth decided to build a device that would make it easier to pass paper through the rollers of a typewriter. It worked so well that Elizabeth eventually patented it as her first invention. During this time, Elizabeth also explored ways to express herself creatively.

She wrote poetry and performed as an actress on stage in Washington's budding theater scene. There, she gained a reputation for her comedic personas, making audiences laugh out loud inside a Masonic hall with her portrayal of a smiling old woman. Nine years after patenting her first invention, Elizabeth would create something new that would take on a life of its own. Wanting to spread her antitrust philosophy, Elizabeth began working on something that would teach people the harms monopolies could inflict on ordinary people (such as low-quality products, price fixing, and low wages) in an interactive way. . She began teaching classes on the topic in the afternoons after finishing work, but she discovered that she was not getting the reach she wanted.

She needed something that was more easily digestible. At the time, board games were becoming popular in middle-class homes and were also used as a means of communication, such as Mansion of Happiness, which was intended to teach Christian virtues and facts, and Anagrams type Scrabble, intended to teach language. . So, she set out to create a board game that might look a little familiar. The Landlord Game was played on a circular board with four large spaces in each corner, including a public park, a "Go to Jail" space, and a "Job Done on Mother Earth", in which players won 100 dollars each to pass.

Among these spaces were properties that could be bought and rented, public services and Luxury Tax spaces. Elizabeth's goal with this set of rules was to show players how cruel and provocative monopolies were. She wanted the players to feel like they had been wronged, as some players got rich by rolling the dice and others lost a lot. This also means that the anger you feel towards your friends and family when playing Monopoly is not a side effect or the result of poor game design. It is the central message around which the game is built. Elizabeth wrote about The Landlord's Game in the fall 1902 issue of Single Tax Review in an attempt to spread the word, saying, "It is a practical demonstration of the present system of land-grabbing with all its usual results and consequences." “I might as well have called it the 'Game of Life,' for it contains all the elements of success and failure in the real world, and the goal is the same as the human race in general seems to have, namely, the accumulation of power." The following year, Elizabeth patented the game.

She even worked with a New York City publisher called the Economic Game Company that listed her as a co-owner. However, the game never found widespread acceptance, and was largely only gained a foothold among left-wing academics who used the game in their lessons and Quakers who traded homemade versions of the game. For her part, Elizabeth sought new ways to spread her political message, including selling herself in a newspaper advertisement that said "young American slave" and said she was for sale to the highest bidder. She described herself as "not beautiful, but very attractive" and with "features full of character and strength, but truly feminine." This stunt took off, the Newspapers reported the stunt and many people responded to Elizabeth's advertisement.

Some realized what she meant, while others responded with serious offers. One tempting offer was from an elderly couple who offered her free room and board on her farm, giving her the freedom to do whatever she wanted. Elizabeth later described her intention to reporters, stating that the ad was aimed at bringing to light the sad situation that women faced in the United States at the time, and she added that “we are not machines. “Girls have minds, desires, hopes and ambitions.” In 1906, Elizabeth got a job as a newspaper reporter and, in 1910, she married businessman Albert Phillips, 54, ten years her senior.

Prior to this, she Elizabeth had been the head of the family, having saved and purchased a house and several acres of property at her expense. Elizabeth never stopped creating games. Also in 1910, she

created

a humor game called Mock Trial which she sent to Parker Brothers. To her delight, they published it. In 1913, Elizabeth found a British publisher for The Landlord's Game: Newbie Game Company. They rebranded and launched it as Brer Fox and Rabbit, with a more stylized design. Elizabeth later created a modified version of her old Landlord Game that included rules such as owning all railroads or utilities, allowing the player to charge more in rent for them.

She also included Chicago-themed spaces and numbers along the edge of the board that marked groups of properties. At the time, support for the single tax was waning and she may have wanted to try to spread her message further, applying for a patent update in 1923. However, despite this, she would soon lose control over the creation itself. her. While Elizabeth had been busy looking for other avenues to spread her message, something interesting happened. The owner's game took on a life of its own. The game had not sold particularly well and had taken hold mainly among academics who leaned toward left-wing politics at universities.

The game had also taken root in the Quakers, a religious group that believes there is a part of God in everyone and that everyone should be treated equally and everyone is worthy of respect. These copies of the game were often drawn or painted, and each new copy altered the rules in some way. Along with the rule changes, the name changed toas he moved from one community to another, going from The Landlord's Game to Auction Monopoly, before settling on the simplicity of Monopoly. And thus the game of Finance was born. Created by Dan Layman, Finance (or Fortune, as it was later called) was published by L.S.

Ayres & Co and later Electronic Laboratories. Finance was launched in 1932 and although Dan attempted to patent the game, he was unable to when his lawyer discovered that Elizabeth's patent already applied to the game. Although Dan originally wanted to call the game Monopoly, his legal counsel informed him that he could not do so. According to his lawyer friends, the name "Monopoly" had been used as the name of the home version of the game, so it was in the public domain and could not be protected. Louis Thun, the friend and roommate who taught Dan about Monopoly, also attempted to patent a version of the game that he and his brother Fred created in 1931, although he encountered the same problem as Dan.

His lawyer discovered Elizabeth's patent and is reported to have said, "Patents are for inventors and you didn't invent them." Instead, the two brothers decided to record their own version of the game, including specific changes to the rules, such as owning a group of properties allows the player to double the rent of those properties, and owning multiple railroads allows the player to increase the rent. rent from each railway owner. of random event cards from the “Community Chest” that could help or hurt players. Pay money to get out of jail. Meanwhile, Elizabeth's creation continued to spread as home copies of the "monopoly game" thanks to the Quaker community.

Newlyweds Ruth and Eugene Raiford learned the game while visiting family in Atlantic City before returning to Philadelphia. There, they taught their friends and neighbors Charles and Ruth Todd, who in turn taught the game to their friends, Charles and Esther Darrow. In 1932, the two couples sat around the Todds' home-made board. The Darrows loved the game, and Charles Todd even made them a board of his own and taught them the rules. And in doing so, he set the stage for a robbery case so audacious it's hard to believe. Charles Darrow continued to ask about the rules, prompting the Todds to invite the Raifords, since they knew the rules. better.

Ruth Raiford later commented on how the Darrows kept asking questions about the rules of the game with the explanation that they "wanted to be sure they were doing it right." Charles Darrow then asked for a written copy of the rules. Charles Todd was confused, as he had never seen a written copy of the rules, but Darrow assured him that he wanted to help teach the game to others. Charles Todd eventually Charles Darrow copied the game (unchanged to the point of containing the same spelling errors) and began selling it as its "sole creator" under the name others had been calling it for years at the time: Monopoly What the Todds had not realized that the Darrows' situation was dire.

Charles and Esther had two children, William, a preschooler, and his youngest, Richard. Tragically, Richard had been stricken with scarlet fever and became mentally disabled. At that time, there were few resources. available to those facing situations like Richard's, especially since he was becoming dangerous to himself and others. At one point, while he was on vacation, Richard's lack of recognition of danger led to him nearly drowning, and he was only saved at the last moment by another boy. It was obvious that Charles Darrow needed to make money. Seeing something marketable in the game he had played at the Todd home, Charles Darrow turned to an artist friend named Franklin Alexander.

He told Franklin that he had recently played the game and wanted to market it, but that he "needed to improve the design a little" and asked for help. Charles Darrow did not attempt to register or patent Monopoly at the time. Instead, he obtained the copyright to the new board game, although the original documents of his claim disappeared from the US copyright office at some point. Charles Darrow later found a publisher at the Philadelphia-based Wanamaker department store, who added the game to his Christmas catalog. As copies of Monopoly sold, demand grew to the point where Charles Darrow needed to hire another Pennsylvania-based printer to meet sales.

He sent copies of Monopoly to both Milton Bradley and Parker Bros., but both rejected the game at the time. Charles Darrow continued to sell Monopoly locally, but Parker Bros. was not doing well. The Great Depression and the stock market crash had hit the board game company hard. It just so happened that people who had difficulty paying bills and buying food were less interested in luxuries like board games. By 1932, Parker Brothers' revenues had dropped by half from pre-Depression figures. Their corporate structure was outdated and executives believed that people would not want to buy board games in an economic crisis and were not willing to take risks.

In 1933, Parkers Bros co-founder George Parker resigned and asked his son-in-law Robert Barton to take over. Although Robert had no experience with board games, he accepted on the condition that he be given full control of the company. George accepted and Robert began to form a new team. First there was the question of money. It seemed that with people struggling to put food on the table, customers were no longer willing to buy board games with money they didn't have. Meanwhile, Parker Brothers continued to pay dividends to investors even as sales declined. The hope was that they could keep their confidence high, even at the cost of their own cash cushion.

A new national pastime was in the making. Families sat around the radio listening to the news instead of gathering around the table to play board games. Robert reviewed the company's operations and tried to find ways to keep Parker Brothers from losing money. Despite his best efforts, they still lost more than $100,000 in their first year as the Great Depression continued to take its toll on sales. Monopoly continued to gain traction, somehow earning a place in FAO Schwarz's luxury toy catalog, even as Finance sold it ten to one. At the time, Elizabeth seemed unaware that pirated copies of her game were being sold.

Somehow, Charles Darrow's version managed to get into the hands of Robert Barton's wife, Sally Barton, who in turn told it to Robert. When Charles Darrow originally pitched Monopoly to Parker Brothers, they rejected the game believing that no one would want to buy a game about buying property when property was at the center of so many problems in the world. Now, the company was on the verge of collapse and taking a risk wouldn't hurt. Robert summoned Charles to the Parker Bros. showroom and offered to buy the game for $7,000 plus royalty payments for copies of the game sold.

Carlos agreed. This was despite the fact that Elizabeth had created the game, Charles Todd had written the rules, and Alexander Franklin had created the art. Charles Darrow had left the main game unchanged, down to a spelling mistake. Robert bought Charles Darrow's leftover Monopoly shares and set about selling them. But George Parker believed he would suffer an early decline and ordered his factories to stop printing it. He was wrong and even he realized it. He overturned his decision and Monopoly turned Parker Brothers' business around. 270,000 copies of Monopoly were sold in its first year on the market, 1935. By 1936, it sold more than 1.75 million copies.

And while Monopoly made Parker Brothers and Charles Darrow millions, Elizabeth didn't see a single cent. Despite patenting the game twice and publishing Mock Trial, it seemed that The Landlord's Game had been forgotten. But this wouldn't be the last time Parker Brothers heard from The Landlord's Game. The monopoly had worked well for Charles Darrow and his family, making them rich practically overnight. Charles and Esther Darrow sent his son Richard to a facility in New Jersey that could care for him better than they could. They also bought a nearby farm to visit. But while his fortunes seemed greater than ever, trouble was brewing elsewhere.

Parker Brothers had made a disturbing discovery. Charles Darrow hadn't made Monopoly. After Robert published the game, a vice president at Parker Brothers wrote to Robert about earlier versions of the game such as The Landlord's Game and Finance, saying, "Lawyers had investigated the situation and discovered that Darrow had appropriated the discarded name Monopoly." . —And also, that Finance was on the market a long time before Monopoly. Robert, in turn, asked Charles Darrow to sign an affidavit stating that his version of the game's story was correct, something he refused to do. Robert used Charles Darrow's lie to his advantage.

According to the University of Iowa, he had a secret meeting with Charles in 1935, where he took advantage of the inevitable legal costs of defending the game to secure Parker Brothers' worldwide rights to distribute Monopoly. But even with the deception revealed, Robert decided the origin story was too good to pass up. People became emotionally attached to rags to riches stories like Charles Darrow, they identified with the narrator. More importantly, they thought that if Charles Darrow could do it, so could they. And Parker Brothers didn't flinch in trying to seal its control over Monopoly. Because Charles Darrow had stated that he first published the game on July 30, 1933, Parker Brothers only had until July 29, 1935 due to a two-year limit on patent applications.

They did not meet this deadline. Still, they applied for a patent on August 31, 1935, and despite two patents previously filed on The Landlord's Game, they were granted it for unknown reasons. And now, Parker Bros. had to cover up the facts. Despite having resigned as CEO of Parker Brothers, in November 1935, George Parker himself traveled to Arlington, Virginia, to tie up a loose end in the confusing Monopoly business: avoid a lawsuit from Elizabeth. George managed to find Elizabeth and told her that Parker Brothers had come across The Landlord's Game and that he wanted to buy the patent. George also told her that he wanted to publish two more games, Elizabeth was elated and sold it to him for $500, royalty-free.

Then they went after Dan's Finance. That Finance was already on the market and had been outselling Monopoly was dangerous. So Robert and his team bought Finance from his publisher, Knapp Electric, for $10,000. An easy solution. His next issue was a bigger one: rival board game giant Milton Bradley had published his own finance-based game called Easy Money. Since Milton Bradley was a major rival of Parker Brothers, buying them was out of the question. So they took a different path to achieve their goals. Parker Brothers pursued Milton Bradley with legal action, alleging that Easy Money infringed its Monopoly patent.

In the end, the two companies came to a resolution that seemed strange from the outside, but made sense for both companies. Milton Bradley was allowed to continue producing and publishing Easy Money through a royalty agreement with Parker Bros. That way, Milton Bradley was able to continue selling his game and Parker Bros. was spared a much fiercer lawsuit for patent fraud. But that legal battle seemed to be brewing anyway. On June 1, 1936, Parker Bros. sued a Texas man named Rudy Copeland. Rudy had a deep knowledge of Monopoly and had created his own version of it like Dan before him.

Rudy's game was called Inflation, and when Parker Bros. sued him for it, he countersued them for copyright and patent fraud. Parker Bros settled out of court for $10,000 with the agreement that Rudy would never speak of it again. In 1939, Parker Brothers fulfilled George's 1935 deal with Elizabeth and published a version of The Landlord's Game. This version featured Elizabeth's face on the box, her rules of her game, and a board where properties were arranged in a more natural-looking city. However, Parker Brothers did not seem interested in promoting the games and soon Elizabeth's works disappeared into obscurity along with their author.

According to George Parker's great-nephew, Edward Parker, the popularity of the game was because families did not have enough money to go out during the Great Depression, and that Monopoly gave them a feeling of wealth. It provided an escape from real life. Edward is also quoted as saying: “…What kept him going is the possibility of individual profit. “It appeals to people’s competitive nature.” Buyers from around the world wanted to publish their own versions of the game, swapping the Atlantic City Monopoly locations for other locations. The UK edition included mosaics such as Piccadilly, Bond Street and Mayfair, for example.

Not only had Monopoly single-handedly saved Parker Brothers from bankruptcy, but these editionsRenowned brands would become a staple of the game, and these days every brand imaginable has been present on the box, from Game of Thrones to My Little Pony. Meanwhile, Elizabeth Magie's name had faded from history. Although not everyone sat idly by. Dan wrote to Time magazine to complain and the Quaker community as a whole was shocked. The Raifords, the family who had introduced Charles Todd to gambling, decided that they should no longer lend out their homemade board games, fearing that they were committing something morally perverse and dangerous.

Charles Todd was enraged and both Charles and Esther Darrow avoided him whenever they saw him on the street and refused to speak to him. Furthermore, he wrote to Parker Bros. saying: “Darrow had nothing to do with the origin of the game. “He stole it.” The Parker brothers did not respond. Still, despite the outcry, the true story of Monopoly's creation seemed destined to fade away. Until 1974, when Parker Bros. sued a San Francisco State University economics professor named Ralph Anspach. Ralph had become angry at monopolies thanks to the then OPEC crisis. Causing shortages and increased gasoline prices. In response, Ralph created his own board game to educate people on how to divide them, which he called Antitrust.

When Parker Brothers found out, they sent him a cease and desist letter. In this case, Ralph believed that Parker Brothers was using the lawsuit to eliminate competition and maintain its own monopoly on games similar to Monopoly. However, as he investigated, he soon suspected that the Monopoly patent might be fraudulent. While investigating, Ralph's son discovered a book that claimed that Charles Darrow had stolen Monopoly from the public domain, taking something that anyone could use for free, and tried to claim ownership of it. Not only that, but while promoting Anti-Monopoly on Oregon television, an elderly woman called and claimed that she played Monopoly before the Great Depression, before Parker Brothers claimed it had been created.

Ralph set out to discover the true story of how Monopoly was created, and as a result, he discovered The Landlord's Game. He located sources and interviewed those who had played the Quaker version of the game. One of these interviewees turned out to be Charles Todd himself. Parker Brothers was concerned and offered Ralph $500,000 to buy Anti-Monopoly and fix the problem. Ralph refused. After studying the history of The Landlord's Game, Ralph knew that Parker Brothers had purchased the game and then buried it. He feared the same thing would happen to Antitrust. And then… he lost. His fears that Parker Brothers would bury Anti-Monopoly turned out to be true.

Literally. After the court case, Parker Brothers received the 40,000 copies of the game and invited journalists to watch them being buried in a landfill. However, Ralph did not accept his loss by sitting back. He appealed the decision on the patent infringement case and took it to a higher court and the case was reviewed by the Ninth Circuit court in 1980. At first, the court ruled against him. Then, in 1982, the Ninth Circuit court reevaluated its decision and overturned it. The court considered that Monopoly was too generic a trademark and therefore invalid. Anti-Monopoly, unlike The Landlord's Game, is available in stores to this day.

However, although Parker Brothers has had the Monopoly trademark removed, it still owns the copyright to the art, the board design, and the Mr. Monopoly name and character, and the game can still be found everywhere. Although today, Hasbro, the toy giant and owner of brands like My Little Pony and Nerf, owns the rights. Since 1935, more than 275 million copies of Monopoly have been sold worldwide. However, the game alone couldn't keep Parker Bros. on top of the world forever. In 1991, Hasbro acquired Parker Bros. and all of its properties, including Monopoly. Still, the new owners haven't delayed the game's release, and today you can find the Fortnite, Sonic the Hedgehog, Millennial, and electronic board editions of the game.

Elizabeth and the story of The Landlord's Game may have been forgotten, as have the lessons of Henry George. But try as they might, Parker Brothers and Charles Darrow couldn't cover up Monopoly's real origins, even if its story remained widely accepted for decades after its release. This is the story of how a journalist who tried to educate people about her economic beliefs created what would become the most popular board game of all time, only to have it stolen. For more fascinating stories about the biggest brands in the world today, don't forget to subscribe to our channel!