Elizabeth Magie Phillips, portrait from a poetry book she wrote. (Wikicommons Media)
Women and Adversity:
Elizabeth Magie Phillips
Inventor of Monopoly
Elizabeth “Lizzie” Magie was that rare woman in the 1800s who believed women could achieve as much as men even though they didn’t get credit for it. She was a woman’s advocate and bought an ad in a Chicago newspaper selling herself “to the highest bidder.” She is quoted as saying the goal was “to make a statement about the dismal position of women. We are not machines. Girls have minds, desires, hopes and ambition.”
She developed The Landlord’s Game in 1903 based on Georgist economics, known as the single tax movement. Wikipedia explains it: “People should own the value that they produce themselves, while the economic rent derived from land—including from all natural resources, the commons and urban locations—should belong equally to all members of society.”
Magie’s father, James Magie, was a newspaper publisher and friend of Abraham Lincoln and believed in Georgist economics.
Magie’s family moved to Washington, D.C. in the early 1880s. She worked as a stenographer and typist. She also was a stage actress, feminist, writer of short stories and poetry and an inventor.
On January 5, 1904 she received a patent for The Landlord’s Game and received another patent in 1924 for another version of the game. She included in the application that “the object of the game is not only to afford amusement to the players but to illustrate to them how under the present or prevailing system of land tenure, the landlord has an advantage over other enterprises and also how the single tax would discourage land speculation.”
Her game was popular, and Charles B. Darrow became interested in it. She sold the rights of The Landlord’s Game to Parker Brothers in November 1935. Darrow made a few changes and called the game Monopoly. He earned a patent for it in December 1935 then sold it to Parker Brothers without him or Parker Brothers mentioning Phillips’ game. In 1936 the D.C. newspaper The Evening Star ran an article about Phillips and noted that Monopoly was similar to The Landlord’s Game.
Bio:
- Born Elizabeth “Lizzie” Magie May 9, 1866 in Macomb, Illinois.
- 1880s — family moved to Washington, D.C.
- 1892 — received a patent for an invention allowing paper to run more smoothly through the rollers of a typewriter
- 1900-1902 — became a stenographer and typist
- 1904 — moved to Brentwood, Maryland; granted a patent for The Landlord’s Game on January 5
- 1905 — had a part in Hedda Gabler
- 1906 — moved to Chicago, ran the ad in the Chicago paper
- 1910 — married Albert W. Phillips
- 1924 — granted another patent under her married name
- 1932 — Adgame Company of D.C. published a 2nd edition of The Landlord’s Game.
- 1935 — sold The Landlord’s Game to Parker Brothers
- 1935 — Darrow sold Monopoly to Parker Brothers. Neither party mentioned Phillips’ game
- 1939 — created another version of The Landlord’s Game
- 1970s — patent dispute between Parker Brothers and Ralph Anspach, creator of the Anti-Monopoly game, revealed Phillips as the true creator of Monopoly.
- Elizabeth Magie Phillips died in 1948 at the age of 81.
- More information:
- The Monopolists: Obsession, Fury, and the Scandal Behind the World’s Favorite Board Game by Mary Pilon
The Billion Dollar Monopoly Swindle by Ralph Anspach, who created the Anti-Monopoly game published in 1973.
https://theglindafactor.com/lizzie-magie-phillips
https://www.womenshistory.org/articles/monopolys-lost-female-inventor#:~:text=By%20the%20turn%20
