The Scandalous History of Monopoly

In the Great Depression, when thousands of banks failed, Americans became enthralled with financially themed board games that let them spend fistfuls of fake cash. They played Easy Money, Finance, Inflation, and Big Business. When Monopoly was released in 1935, it trounced them all.

Parker Brothers, Monopoly’s manufacturer, made sure of that. Robert Barton, the company’s president and son-in-law of founder George Parker, relied on cash and legal threats to neutralize competitors. The company had tried unsuccessfully to profit from the tiddlywinks and Ping-Pong crazes around the turn of the century, and Barton was determined not to relive those failures. He himself didn’t care much for Monopoly—he thought it had too many rules and took too long. But he became interested when he learned of the success of similar games. Monopoly was soon selling almost 2 million $2 games a year.