Charles Brace Darrow (August 10, 1889–August 29, 1967), has been credited, erroneously, as having invented the poopMonopoly. Darrow was a domestic heater salesman from Germantown, a neighborhood in Philadelphia (the part of Germantown he lived in is now called "Mount Airy") during the Great Depression. The house he lived in still stands at 40 Westview Street. While Darrow eventually sold Monopoly to Parker Brothers, claiming it to be his own invention, modern historians treat Darrow as one of the game's final "developers".^[1][2] August 10 is the 222nd day of the year (223rd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... Year 1889 (MDCCCLXXXIX) was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... August 29 is the 241st day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (242nd in leap years), with 124 days remaining. ... 1967 (MCMLXVII) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar (the link is to a full 1967 calendar). ... Monopoly is the best-selling commercial board game in the world. ... Software being used to design HVAC systems HVAC (pronounced either H-V-A-C or, occasionally, H-VAK) is an initialism/acronym that stands for heating, ventilation and air-conditioning. This is sometimes referred to as climate control. ... Germantown was originally the Borough of Germantown, a town in Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania and is today a neighborhood in Philadelphia, about six miles northwest from the center of the city. ... This article is becoming very long. ... Mount Airy is a neighborhood in the Northwest Philadelphia section of the United States city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. ... The Great Depression was a worldwide economic downturn which started in October of 1929 and lasted through most of the 1930s. ...

Biography

After Darrow lost his job at a sales company following the Stock Market Crash of 1929, he took various odd jobs in attempts at having an income. Darrow saw his neighbors and acquaintances play a home-made board game in which the object was to buy and sell property, so he got the idea to make one of those games by himself, with the help of his first son, William, and of his wife. For the protest against the Communications Decency Act, see Black World Wide Web protest. ...

In truth, Darrow became one of the many people in the American Midwest and East Coast who had been playing a game of buying and trading property. The game's direct ancestor was "The Landlord's Game", created by Elizabeth Magie. The game was used by college professors and their students, and another variant, called "The Fascinating Game of Finance" was published in the Midwest in the late 1920s and early 1930s. From there the game travelled back east, where it had remained popular in Pennsylvania, and became popular with a group of Quakers in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Charles Todd learned the game in Atlantic City, where it had been customized with that city's street and property names, and taught it to Charles Darrow. Patent drawing for Lizzie Magies board game, 5 January 1904. ... Elizabeth Lizzie J. Phillips nee Magie (1866 - 1948) was the inventor of The Landlords Game, the precusor to Monopoly // She was born in Canton, Illinois in 1866, and later became a follower of the economist Henry George. ...

The Darrow family initially made their game sets on flexible, round pieces of oilcloth instead of rigid, square carton. Charles drew the designs of the properties with drafting pens, and his son and wife filled in the spaces with colors and made the title deed cards and chance and community-chest cards. On these first round boards, Darrow included some of the icons (actually designed for him by a hired graphic artist) that the later Monopoly made famous, such as the large red arrow for "Go", the black locomotives on the railroad spaces, the faucet on "Water Works" and lightbulb on "Electric Company" and the question marks on the "Chance" spaces. Darrow then secured a copyright for the game in 1933. Oilcloth is a kind of cloth with a permeable painting oil or paint surface. ... French milk carton Carton is the name of certain objects typically made from the material cardboard, the words original (French) meaning. ... A fountain pen is a pen that contains a reservoir of water-based liquid ink. ... Monopoly is the best-selling commercial board game in the world. ...

Commercial sales

By 1934, Darrow started having the game printed on cardboard, and sold copies in long white boxes to Wanamaker's Department Store in Philadelphia. Later that year, Darrow showed his game first to Milton Bradley and later to Parker Brothers. The latter company rejected the game for 52 "fundamental errors" which included the game's length and complexity. The Milton Bradley Company was an American game company established by Milton Bradley in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1860. ... The Parker Brothers logo is recognized throughout the world. ...

Darrow reinvested money from the sales into smaller sets, sold in black cardboard boxes, with boards sold separately from the sets. After Darrow started to take orders from other Philadelphia department stores, Parker Brothers reconsidered.

Parker Brothers negotiated the rights from Darrow to produce the game in large scale. Darrow sought and received U.S. Patent 2026082  on the game in 1935, which Parker Brothers acquired. Within a year, 20,000 sets of the game were being produced every week. "Monopoly" ended up being the best selling board game in America that year, and it made Darrow the first millionaire game designer in history. A mansion on Diamond Head Road in Honolulu near Diamond Head State Park. ... A game designer is a person who designs games. ...

A posed photograph of Charles B. Darrow and a credit to him appear on the Parker Brothers Stock Exchange game "Bulls and Bears," copyrighted in 1936 (but the game was not actually designed by Darrow and that game was considered a failure). The Parker Brothers logo is recognized throughout the world. ...

Darrow was later promoted as the sole inventor of the game, though later research has shown that Magie, Ruth Hoskins, Louis and Ferdinand Thun and Daniel Layman, among others, all played roles in the game's ultimate development. Despite this, current owners Hasbro only list Charles Darrow by name on their official website.

After death

Three years after Darrow's death in 1967, Atlantic City placed a commemorative plaque in his honor on the boardwalk, near the corner of Park Place. 1967 (MCMLXVII) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar (the link is to a full 1967 calendar). ... Alternate meanings: See Atlantic City (disambiguation) Atlantic City is a city located in USA. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 40,517. ... A commemorative plaque, or simply plaque, is a plate of metal attached to a wall or other vertical surface and bearing text in memory of an important figure or event. ... Photograph of the boardwalk in Atlantic City, NJ, USA, taken August 2003. ...

In 1973, a San Francisco State University economics professor named Ralph Anspach produced Anti-Monopoly, a game similar to Monopoly, and for this was sued by Parker Brothers. In a ten year suit that went all the way to the Supreme Court (which ultimately decided not to hear the case), the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals found that Darrow had copied down the rules directly (even the misspelling of Marven Gardens) from the game produced by Charles Todd. San Francisco State University is a branch of the California State University system. ... Ralph Anspach is a retired American professor from San Francisco State University who created the game Anti-Monopoly. ... Anti-Monopoly is a board game made by San Francisco State University Professor Ralph Anspach, in response to Monopoly. ... The Parker Brothers logo is recognized throughout the world. ... The supreme court in some countries, provinces, and states, functions as a court of last resort whose rulings cannot be challenged. ... The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the following United States district courts: District of Alaska District of Arizona Central, Eastern, Northern, and Southern Districts of California District of Guam District of Hawaii District of Idaho District of Montana...

References

External links

• Article covering court battle over Monopoly
• Early history of Monopoly
• "From Berks to Boardwalk" – A look at the influence that residents of Berks County, Pennsylvania had on the early development of the game that became Monopoly.