Monopoly: The anti-society game and the woman behind it

The year is 1904 and the American Elizabeth Magie, known as Lizzie, is fighting for women's rights, equality and the abolition of systems in the still young United States of America. Born in 1866, the woman with the short haircut worked as a stenographer in the 1880s and also filed a patent to improve typewriters. Thanks to her invention, paper could roll through the rollers more easily. Patents were a man's business back then. Less than one per cent of all patents were issued to women. Lizzie didn't care and continued to invent. The enterprising woman was also a journalist and actress. On the side.

And then she invented Monopoly. Or rather: its predecessor called "The Landlord's Game". The history of this game also involves a robbery: according to the official version of today's publisher Hasbro, Lizzie is not the inventor of the game. No matter what the evidence says.

Lizzie Magie, feminist and game designer

As nice as the patent was, as nice as her articles in newspapers were, as funny as Lizzie Magie was as a comedienne; the woman's passion lay in politics. She was a feminist and an opponent of slavery and Georgism.

Georgism is an economic model. As boring as it sounds, the world still suffers from it today, as the model is the basis for "The Landlord's Game" and therefore the basis for Monopoly. Georgism envisages not taxing revenue. The government should introduce a universal land tax. The key to the amount of tax would be the usefulness, size and location of the land. The taxes collected should first be used to finance the government and its projects. The rest would then be distributed to the people. The idea behind this model is to motivate the people to cultivate land and promote social justice. Georgism is also intended to weaken the power base of landowners.

Lizzie Magie was unstoppable. As a stenographer, she earned enough to be able to stand on her own two feet. Without a husband. Lizzie even had enough money to place an advert in the newspaper. She put herself up for auction as a "Young Woman, American Slave". She was looking for a man to own her. She wanted to draw attention to the fact that the only people who are free in the "Land of the Free" are white men. The advert did the rounds across the country and cemented Lizzie in the minds of the USA as a proud and loud feminist.

Patent 748,626: Lizzie subversive

Lizzie Magie was not only loud, but also creative and cheeky. No mechanism of the rulers was too bad for her. She knew no social sanctums and was essentially a thorn in the side of the elite. She married a man in 1910, at the ripe old age of 44. Her husband's name was Albert Wallace Phillips.

Albert Wallace knew his wife not only as an activist, but also as the designer of a board game that was not only politically controversial, but also turned the concept of the board game on its head. Because until January 1904, board games were linear. She applied for a patent for a game that has no beginning and no end. It goes on and on, in circles.

"The Landlord's Game"

US patent 748,626 is issued.

She tested the board game with friends, who all had a lot of fun with it. This is the official version, which is historically regarded as fact. However, the history of Lizzie Magie also allows other conclusions to be drawn: subversive as Lizzie lived, worked and, above all, acted, she wanted to bring a children's toy into the world that would teach children and their parents a lesson, shake them up and get stuck in their brains where a book or an article in a magazine never could.

Because The Landlord's Game comes with two sets of rules.

1. The monopolist version: you must own everything and run your competition into the ground
2. The anti-monopolist version: In the end, those who own the least are the richest. Social fairness emerges

By now at the latest, it should be clear why Lizzie Magie invented a game.

Lizzie herself describes the game as a "hands-on demonstration of the current system of land ownership with all its usual outcomes and consequences". Land ownership and renting makes the owners and landlords richer, but drives everyone else into poverty.

Lizzie hoped that the game would foster an understanding of social injustice in children.

Monopoly messes everything up

After the patent, Lizzie tried to find a publisher for the game. At first, she published the game herself - of course, Lizzie Magie simply co-founded a company in 1904 - but then in 1909 she asked the game publisher Parker Brothers if they wanted to publish the game.

They didn't want to at the time.

In later years, with only one set of rules, Monopoly became a perennial favourite.

However, the game was a perennial favourite in colleges and left-wing circles. Lizzie's concept works too. The players recognise the unfairness and feel it right away, even if they are bankrupt while someone else is bathing in money.

The concept is then lost. The name "Monopoly" reappears sometime between 1906 and 1923. In 1924, Lizzie acquired a new patent that would give her back control over her game. "The Landlord's Game" is published under this patent by Adgame Company (Inc.) in 1932.

Then came Parker Brothers and later Hasbro. The official story: Monopoly was invented in 1933 by an unemployed steam-radiator mechanic and part-time dog walker called Charles Darrow. Darrow and the Parker Brothers patented the game in 1935 and Monopoly became the Parker Brothers' bestseller.

Lizzie Magie dies in 1948 at the age of 81. She was never officially recognised for her work. <p