Board Game Monopoly Gets Invented

About this episode

The episode discusses the invention of Monopoly by Lizzie Magie and the subsequent theft of her rights.

A very progressive woman named Lizzie Magie (MA-gee) worked for years to develop a board game that would teach that we really don't want people to own property, and then charge enormous amounts of money to let others use it. Although she did tons of work, (e.g. got a patent, then another (on an updated version), and another, etc.) The rights to it were (basically) stolen from her, and the "thief" became a millionaire, while she did not. Game maker Parker Brothers was involved. Lizzie was pretty much forgotten about until in 1973, a Professor Ansprach, having his own dispute with Parker Brothers (owned by Hasbro), found out about Lizzie and brought her situation up in court.

People in this episode

Host: Sue Moresi

Topics covered

• board games
• property ownership
• history
• invention
• women in history

Keywords

• Monopoly
• Lizzie Magie
• board game history
• property rights
• Parker Brothers

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Parker Brothers, Hasbro

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