In the 1930s board games were becoming rapidly popular in America due to their colorful boxes, easy-to-learn rules and inexpensive prices, "which put them within the grasp of anyone interested in playing"(Costello 59). Games, such as Cribbage and Parcheesi, were popular in Greenbelt.(Neville) This board game craze opened the door wide for a game such as Monopoly, which allowed people to escape the hard times of the depression era with a real estate game they could win.(Costello 59)

It is very possible that Monopoly, as many people think, "sprang from the yearnings of the downtrodden who were devastated by the stock market crash of 1929 and its relentless aftereffects"(Costello 59). In this sense, Monopoly is an extremely powerful cultural artifact. However, through glamourizing the story of Monopoly, many people have been misled on the real roots of Monopoly's emergence.(Costello 59)

According to Costello, most people feel that they do know the real story, or what "Monopoly authority Phil Orbanes calls 'the legend'"(Costello 59) The real story began when in 1933, with "Charles Darrow, of Germantown, Pennsylvania, a heating engineer, was out of a job in an era when unemployment was rampant"(Costello 59). Longing to vacation in Atlantic City and to travel on the speedy Reading but lacking the money, Darrow had a lot of free time. He then decided to design a game - Monopoly. He brought it to Parker Brothers but they turned him down, stating that there were 52 fundamental errors. Well, he sold it on his own and the game sold so well that Parker Brothers reconsidered their decision.(Costello 60)

In truth, the origin of the game did not come from the single mind of Darrow. "If you think about it, how could a game as complex yet compellingly playable as Monopoly spring out of one person's mind complete and whole?"(Costello 60) In 1904, years before Monopoly's patent, a game called The Landlord's Game was patented by Elizabeth J. Maggie. "The game board has 40 spaces, the same as Monopoly. There are 4 railroads, 2 utilities(water and electric), and 22 rental properties whose values increase as a player goes around the board. There are spaces for Jail, Go to Jail, Luxury Tax, and Parking. But there's no Go; in this game the first space is called Mother Earth"(Costello 60). Maggie approached Parker Brothers with the game in 1924 but they turned down producing it. Then, Dan Layman, who was rumored to have played The Landlord's Game in college, invented a game very similar to Monopoly called Finance. Layman played the game with Ruth Hoskins who "decided to make a new board featuring the names of streets in Atlantic City. Hoskins played the game regularly with friends, including someone named Charles Todd, who had a friend named Carles B. Darrow"(Costello 62). "Darrow decided to redesign the board and organize the rules. He kept Hoskin's Atlantic City names, continuing to mispell 'Marvin Gardens'", which is spelled Marven Gardens.(Costello 62) Darrow copyrighted his board and rules and took Monopoly to Parker Brothers, "where the 52 errors were duly noted. The amazing thing is that no one in 1933 recalled having seen Maggie's earlier version of the game in 1924"(Costello 62).

This story is a good example of how certain things or events get "forgotten" in our culture to glamourize others. Also, it is interesting how Parker Brothers, an extremely powerful organization of the 20th century, was according to Robert Barton "within an inch of disaster" when it was saved by the game they had turned down twice. It is even more striking that the game persevered through the early 1900s and emerged in the 1930s to become the most popular board game in America. Allowing people to fantasize becoming rich through real estate during such a down period as the depression era shows how this game was an integral part of entertainment in the 1930s and 40s.

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