The Monopolists Read online

Esther explained to Blanche that because of his illness, Dickie was suffering from permanent brain damage. The public schools would do little to accommodate him, and for the rest of his life, the Darrows were destined to navigate the complicated world that surrounded the mentally impaired. It was one more rooted in eugenics and sterilization than humane treatment.

  One day Darrow asked Alexander if he would do him a favor. He had just played a new game with some friends, he said, and wanted to give marketing it a whirl. But before doing so, he needed to jazz up its design a bit. Could Alexander help him?

  A prolific working artist, Alexander had studied at the prestigious School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Northwestern University. He was best known for his work on Hairbreadth Hairy, a popular series focused on a boy hero trying to rescue a girl from a recurring villain. A World War I veteran, he had also written Finney of the Force and The Featherheads. Later in his career, he would take an overt antiwar stance.

  Sometimes with drinks in hand, sometimes by a card table, sometimes on the Alexanders’ porch, and sometimes in the cartoonist’s third-floor studio, Darrow and Alexander played the monopoly game, with Alexander slowly adding illustrations to the board. Darrow had made a round oilcloth copy of the board from the Todds’ version, and the Darrows and the Alexanders played a few rounds on the newly illustrated board together.

  An early round Darrow monopoly board, which legend had it was designed to fit a dining room table. (The Strong)

  Alexander didn’t expect to make any money from his drawings. In fact, feeling that he was making only a trivial contribution to the game, he didn’t even sign his name to his work, making it difficult to discern years later his contributions from those of another overlooked graphic designer.

  Darrow began to market the monopoly game, complete with the written rules he had received from Charles Todd and the “Marvin Gardens” misspelling. With little money to finance his operation, he started on a small scale, feeling that even if he wasn’t successful, he had nothing to lose.

  While he was publishing the game on his own, Darrow did not register the word “monopoly” as a trademark on his game’s written rules, and his boxes simply read MONOPOLY, without an R or TM after the word, meaning that he had neither registered a claim to the name nor was he in the process of trying to obtain one. He didn’t immediately apply for a patent, either. But the board itself did have a Darrow copyright line printed on it—COPYRIGHT 1933 CHAS B. DARROW—perhaps to lay claim to the artwork and design. Decades later, however, it’s unclear what specific claims Darrow did or did not make, because sometime after 1933, the critical, original documents related to his claim disappeared from the U.S. Copyright Office.

  Wanamaker’s, the Philadelphia-based department store that had rejected Finance years earlier, agreed to publish Darrow’s monopoly game and included it in its holiday catalog.

  It’s unclear whether the early Mr. Monopoly was Alexander’s creation, but the original character, which is stylized and drawn in thick black lines, bears a strong resemblance to his cartoon work. Inside the game were more illustrated figures, including a scolding police officer and a criminal sulking behind bars in the Jail space. The Go to Jail and railroad property cards were virtually identical to the cards found inside Monopoly games today, but the Chance and Community Chest cards were still devoid of illustration. Property cards were printed on assorted colors of paper, and paper money—including a five-hundred-dollar bill—was provided.

  The new art and elegant packaging of Darrow’s game elevated it to something approaching a work of art—a game people would want to bring into their homes, present to their friends, and play for hours. Early copies of the Landlord’s Game had also had bright colors, elegance, and an ambitious design, but the Darrow monopoly board was delightfully charming and sleek. It also lacked many of the Landlord Game’s direct references and iconography related to Henry George. Many of the symbols in Darrow’s version of the game—the Chance question mark, railroads, collecting money when passing Go—could easily be read as positive takes on capitalism rather than as the critiques that Lizzie Magie had intended thirty years earlier, a fantasy interpretation of a financial system that had drawn such cynicism.

  Darrow hired a Pennsylvania-based printer to accommodate the growing demand for the game. But like Daniel Layman and Lizzie Magie before him, he aspired to finding a mass publisher and submitted the monopoly board with its new artwork to Milton Bradley and Parker Brothers.

  On May 31, 1934, a letter with elegant Milton Bradley letterhead arrived at the Darrow home at 40 Westview Street.

  Dear Sir:

  After giving your directions of the game of MONOPOLY, which you sent our Mr. DeMeyer some time ago, our very careful review and consideration, we do not feel we would be interested in adding this item to our line.

  We are returning your directions herewith, but thank you for bringing the matter to our attention.

  Very truly yours,

  Manager Game Department

  Five months later, another letter arrived, this one from Parker Brothers.

  Dear Mr. Darrow:

  Our New Games Committee has carefully considered the game which you so kindly sent in to us for examination. While the game no doubt contains considerable merit, we do not feel that it is adaptable to our line.

  The games we have planned and developed far in advance, make a very attractive addition to our line, and are quite sufficient under present conditions. Therefore, we are returning your material to you, under separate cover.

  We thank you sincerely for your kindness and courtesy in writing to us, and hope that you will remember us when you think of games.

  Very truly yours,

  (Le Roy Howard)

  PARKER BROTHERS (INC.)

  P.S. Of course, you know, you are invited to send in any other ideas for games that may occur to you. All games submitted will be for 1935 consideration.

  The letters were cold and impersonal. But Darrow still believed his monopoly game had commercial potential. He would continue to make, sell, and market the sets—for Dickie’s sake, if nothing else.

  PARKER BROTHERS, FROM DEPRESSION TO BOOM

  “The cry was raised against the great corporations.”

  —FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT

  On October 24, 1929 the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell abruptly, losing 11 percent of its value, ending a long rally. Investors panicked, and five days later the Dow closed down 12 percent and saw record-setting volume, with investors desperately trying to flee the markets. More than thirty billion dollars had been lost in a matter of days, and there was more to come, with the market plunging from a 1929 peak of 381.17 points to a close in 1932 of 41.22. The American and global economies, which had been flexing their muscles after emerging from World War I, were in free fall.

  Parker Brothers continued to pay dividends to its investors in a feeble attempt to remain in their good graces. But the payments were draining the company of its cash cushion. It was a rude awakening for the Parker family, who had become accustomed to luxuries and their business’s bottom line. Executives reasoned that a nation struggling to pay its bills and put food on the table was unlikely to spend money on frivolous pursuits. Furthermore, a new national culture—one focused outside the home—was developing, fueled in part by the public’s recently acquired ability to collectively experience news and entertainment via radio broadcasts. Technological and economic disruption made the future of the board game industry unclear.

  Across the state, Parker Brothers’ longtime rival Milton Bradley was also in a precarious position. The company had never really recovered after the death of its namesake in 1911, and by 1932 the company would be severely curtailing production, with no plan in sight for reversing its fast downward course.

  In the fall of 1931, Sally Parker, the youngest of George and Grace’s three children, married Robert Barton in a celebration that included a New England dinner party and a barn dance. Barton came from a family of promi
nent Baltimore-area lawyers and often spoke of being a relative of the legendary Confederate general Stonewall Jackson. Despite the dismal economy, Barton earned an enviable living working in a lucrative law practice. He was a Harvard man who avoided drinking at industry events, sometimes, he told people, because he didn’t want to chance leaking a company secret. Some employees jokingly called him “the judge” for his serious and somber nature.

  In 1932, Parker Brothers’ sales figures were disastrous: Revenues were half of what they had been prior to the Great Depression. In addition, the company’s management structure was antiquated and ill equipped to handle the turbulence of the downturn. The firm that George Parker had founded as a teenager nearly fifty years before was on the brink of implosion.

  The turmoil at Parker Brothers mirrored the unrest of national politics. After the stock market crash, debate raged over whether President Herbert Hoover was being too interventionist in his government’s attempts to speed up the economy—or too passive. The ability of average Americans to accumulate and generate their own wealth was coming under fire, with proponents of the New Deal dubbing Wall Street executives “Princes of Property.” While campaigning for office in 1932, Franklin Roosevelt gave a nod to the trust-busting era that Henry George had inspired.

  “Clear-sighted men saw with fear the danger that opportunity would no longer be equal,” Roosevelt told a San Francisco audience. “That the growing corporation, like the feudal baron of old, might threaten the economic freedom of individuals to earn a living. In that hour, our antitrust laws were born. The cry was raised against the great corporations.”

  In 1933, George Parker decided to step down. The realities of the Great Depression were painfully undeniable by then, and he felt that a newer, younger leader might better be able to handle the difficult economic climate. He asked his son-in-law to take the job. “I don’t have any sons left,” he told Robert Barton.

  Barton had no experience with the game industry and was still new to the Parker brood, but he told his father-in-law that he was willing to accept his offer on one condition: He was to be granted complete control of the firm. With his options limited, Parker agreed, and remained on at the company as chairman—an office fixture known for his thick white mustache upturned at the ends, pointed beard, and elegant suits.

  George Parker (seated) and his staff in the 1930s. His son-in-law, Robert Barton, second from the left, would take control of the company as it reeled during the Great Depression. (Philip Orbanes)

  As soon as Barton stepped into Parker Brothers’ small Salem office, he began assembling a new staff and shrugging off skeptics at the firm who viewed him as an outsider. He quickly became known for his meticulous eye and insistence on cleanliness. When he traveled to the company’s distribution plants, he even inspected their restrooms. Barton’s moves helped stem some of the company’s hemorrhaging, but it was not enough. In his first year on the job, Parker Brothers’ sales declined for the third year in a row, with the firm suffering a loss in excess of one hundred thousand dollars. Barton and his employees needed a plan, and they needed it fast.

  •

  In Philadelphia, far from Barton’s office, Charles Darrow was successfully selling the game now officially being called Monopoly. He had even secured a spot in F.A.O. Schwarz’s catalog, a notable achievement for a rube in the game business. It is unclear why the toy store picked up Darrow’s game and not Daniel Layman’s Finance, which bore a striking resemblance to Monopoly and was outselling it at a clip of ten to one.

  Hearing about F.A.O. Schwarz’s popular new game, Sally Barton excitedly told her husband and father about it. Parker Brothers had rejected Darrow’s game earlier because they had found it too complicated, too wonky. And who would want to play a real estate game now, when housing was at the root of so much distress for many American families? But with his firm poised for collapse and nothing to lose, Barton decided to listen to his wife and buy Darrow’s Monopoly.

  Traveling from Boston to Manhattan, Barton summoned Darrow to the Parker Brothers showroom in the gray, triangular Flatiron Building. Quickly agreeing on the basic terms, the round-faced, jolly Philadelphian and the lean, meticulous executive drew up a contract that allowed Parker Brothers to buy Darrow’s version of the game for a reported seven thousand dollars, plus residuals. The version included artwork by Darrow’s friend Franklin Alexander and all of the details that the Quakers had added to the game, including the Atlantic City locations, the hotels, the color groupings of the properties, the Income Tax, 10% space, and the “Marvin Gardens” misspelling that had originated with the Todds. Barton arranged to purchase Darrow’s remaining inventory, and Darrow headed back to Philadelphia, pleased with the proposed business arrangement. It was March 1935. Darrow had just missed the race riots uptown in Harlem, and the Dust Bowl would hit Oklahoma in just a few weeks.

  One year later, the still influential George Parker announced that he had ordered his plant to stop producing Monopoly—as he was certain the game was heading into an “early slump.” Almost immediately, however, he realized the folly of his decision and reversed his order. Monopoly, like Finance before it, was defying an industry notion that business-themed games did not sell—that they were archaic, technical, and often boring. As the Parker Brothers catalog proudly advertised, “MONOPOLY: THE GREAT FINANCIAL GAME … is sweeping the country because it appeals to every American’s love of bargain and business dealing. Give a Monopoly party and guests want to play all night!”

  An early white box edition of Darrow’s Monopoly game. The blockbuster sales helped save Parker Brothers–and Darrow–from the brink of financial destruction. (Philip Orbanes)

  With the popular edition of Monopoly costing $2 and the deluxe edition costing a dollar more, the game was an undisputed smash. In its first year at Parker Brothers, it sold 278,000 units. In 1936, 1,751,000 units were sold, resulting in millions in profits. That same year, Parker Brothers also released a Stock Exchange expansion pack, priced at 50 cents, that allowed players to buy and sell stocks such as General Radio, American Motors, Motion Pictures, and United Airways in addition to real estate. An outside artist, Dan Fox, was hired by the firm and added onto Alexander’s design work, and is believed by many to be the uncredited artist behind the Mr. Monopoly character.

  Reports emerged that Parker Brothers was receiving so many telegraphed orders for Monopoly that its overwhelmed employees were filing them in laundry baskets. Overwhelmed, the company placed an order for three million dice with manufacturer Jesse Melvin Koppe of Providence, Rhode Island. No longer considered sinful, dice had become ubiquitous within the American game experience.

  It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly why, after being around in various versions since the early 1900s, Monopoly exploded in popularity in the 1930s. Was it because players wanted to live vicariously and handle large sums of money—something that so few could do in the 1930s? Was it because of the game’s streamlined design? Or its comic strip appeal? Or was it merely because the game could be mass-produced and -marketed now, making it accessible to people in a way that hadn’t been possible before? Barton and the team at Parker Brothers did not spend a lot of time musing about the whys. They were too busy keeping up with demand.

  Edward Parker, the grandnephew of the founder, recalled years later, “During the Depression, people did not have enough money to go out to the shows … So they stayed home and played Monopoly. It also gave them a feeling of wealth. But what kept it going is the chance for individual gain. It appeals to the competitive nature of people. The player can always say to himself, ‘I’m going to get the better of the other guy.’ People also can play Monopoly without it being the end of the world. Sort of a release from the tensions of everyday life.”

  Some crazed players wrote to Parker Brothers to dispute the written rules that were included in each set. In one exchange, a player identifying himself as Iron Duke from Brooklyn, New York, wrote: “Do you idiots know how to play this game, or are you trying t
o disrupt homes and destroy families with your damn rules?”

  From the beginning, though, much of the public disregarded Parker Brothers’ written rules, which were similar to those used by the Quaker and Philadelphia players and had essentially been product tested for thirty years, since Lizzie Magie had patented her Landlord’s Game. Instead, people created their own house rules—rules that often made the game long and exhausting and gave rise to its reputation for being boring. In reality, when played according to its written rules, the typical Monopoly game lasts less than ninety minutes.

  To this day, many Monopoly players often discard the rule that states that if a player lands on a property and does not wish to buy it from the bank, the property goes to auction. Property auctions afford players the opportunity to bluff on prices, but they also lead to more direct combat between players, which may be why the rule is so often disregarded, especially by those playing with children.

  Another common change to the Parker Brothers rules involves injecting more cash into the game—usually through the Free Parking space or by distributing more money to each player—which prolongs the game time. Many players also spurn the deal-making and trading aspects of the game, even though they heighten its action and lead to some of its most memorable moments.

  Parker Brothers wasn’t the only one benefiting from Monopoly’s overnight popularity—the game had dramatically changed the fortunes of the Darrow family as well. Suddenly, they had more money than they knew what to do with. Charles Darrow told one reporter that he had made more than five thousand dollars in royalties his first year and that sales had been twenty-five times greater than expected during Monopoly’s first few years. He was on track to become the rare board game millionaire, a real-life manifestation of a Monopoly player who got rich quick.