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Do NOT Pass GO! (Classic)

Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford

Fri Jan 03 2025

Summary

Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford: "Do NOT Pass GO! (Classic)"

Release Date: January 3, 2025

Introduction: Monopoly’s Dark Side

In this classic episode of Cautionary Tales, host Tim Harford delves into the captivating and often overlooked history of the beloved board game Monopoly. While Monopoly is synonymous with cutthroat competition and property trading, its origins reveal a much more nuanced and socially conscious inception designed to teach cooperative and ethical economic principles.

The Myth of Charles Darrow

Tim Harford begins by recounting the widely accepted narrative that Charles Darrow, an unemployed steam radiator repairman from Philadelphia, invented Monopoly during the Great Depression. According to this story, Darrow created the game out of desperation to support his family, drawing the game board on oilcloth and using Atlantic City street names to uplift his household during tough times. This tale of rags-to-riches and creative ingenuity quickly captured the public's imagination, securing Darrow’s place in Monopoly lore.

Notable Quote:

"Monopoly became a smash hit. Charles Darrow's fortune was assured, as was his reputation as the creator of one of the most successful games in the world." – Tim Harford [08:45]

Unveiling the True Origins: Lizzie Magee and the Landlord’s Game

Contrary to the popular story, Harford reveals through Mary Pollon's research in The Monopolists that Monopoly was not Darrow’s original creation. Instead, the game was an adaptation of earlier versions played by Charles and Olive Todd, who had learned it from Ruth Hoskins. However, the true progenitor of the game was Lizzie Magee, a remarkable woman whose Landlord’s Game was patented in 1904.

Lizzie Magee, a dedicated follower of Henry George's Georgist principles, designed the Landlord’s Game to illustrate the pitfalls of monopolies and promote equitable land taxation. Her game featured cooperative elements where players invested in women’s inventions and emphasized resource accumulation over ruthless competition.

Notable Quote:

"Lizzie Magee broke the mold in so many ways... She actually had the determination to follow through on her dreams despite all the obstacles." – Tim Harford [28:58]

Gender and Innovation: The Struggle for Recognition

The episode sheds light on the systemic gender biases that marginalized women inventors like Magee. Despite holding patents, women faced significant barriers in gaining recognition and commercial success. Harford cites economist Lisa Cook’s research, emphasizing that societal expectations and lack of mentorship perpetuated the innovation gap. Cook highlights that if young girls were equally exposed to female inventors, innovation rates could surge dramatically.

Notable Quote:

"If young girls had the same exposure to female inventors as young boys did to male inventors, they would innovate more than two and a half times as much as now." – Tim Harford [32:10]

The Downfall of the Landlord’s Game

Despite its progressive design, Lizzie Magee’s Landlord’s Game struggled to gain traction. When George Parker of Parker Brothers acquired the rights in 1935, he rebranded it as Monopoly. However, Parker Brothers did not promote the cooperative and educational aspects of the game, instead focusing on the competitive elements that Darrow had popularized. This shift aligned Monopoly with capitalist values, overshadowing Magee’s original intent.

Magee’s contributions were systematically erased from the game’s history, and she became a footnote overshadowed by the myth of Charles Darrow. Her efforts to promote single taxation and cooperative economics were lost in the commercial success of a more ruthless version of the game.

Notable Quote:

"Lizzie Magee did not fit the stereotype of a creative genius... she was desperate for her game to reach the audience it deserved." – Tim Harford [37:22]

The Legacy and Lessons Learned

Harford concludes by reflecting on the broader implications of Magee’s story. The exclusion of women and minority inventors from mainstream recognition reveals deep-seated issues within the innovation economy. The episode serves as a cautionary tale about the importance of acknowledging and supporting diverse contributions to creativity and progress.

Notable Quote:

"Having a patent might not be enough. A patent isn't much good if nobody respects it." – Tim Harford [30:15]

Conclusion: A Call for Recognition and Change

Do NOT Pass GO! (Classic) underscores the necessity of revisiting and revising the narratives that shape our understanding of innovation and success. By bringing Lizzie Magee’s story to the forefront, Tim Harford advocates for a more inclusive acknowledgment of all contributors who have shaped our cultural and economic landscapes.

Notable Quote:

"Maybe it will achieve no more social change than Lizzie McGee did with her cooperative version of the Landlord's Game. But it seems worth a try." – Tim Harford [40:59]

Additional Resources

For those interested in exploring this topic further, Harford references Mary Pollon's The Monopolists and Christopher Ketchum's article in Harper's titled "Monopoly is Theft." Academic works by Lisa Cook and Raj Chetty are also recommended for understanding the innovation gap and the socio-economic factors influencing patent ownership.

About the Episode

This episode of Cautionary Tales is written by Tim Harford, with contributions from Andrew Wright, and produced by Ryan Dilley and Marilyn Rust. The narrative is enriched by the voice talent of Helena Bonham Carter and Jeffrey Wright, among others, bringing to life the historical and social dynamics discussed.

If you enjoyed this summary, consider listening to the full episode of "Do NOT Pass GO! (Classic)" on Pushkin Industries to immerse yourself in this fascinating exploration of Monopoly’s true origins and the enduring impact of gender bias in innovation.

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Transcript

Malcolm Gladwell (0:00)

Foreign.

Tim Harford (0:09)

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Helena Bonham Carter (0:14)

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Tim Harford (0:27)

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Malcolm Gladwell (0:38)

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Tim Harford (2:00)

Happy New Year. Did you pull out a board game over the holiday season? Did you play nicely? Or did it quickly descend into acrimony, name calling, and accusations of cheating? The game that seems to bring out the killer instinct in even the kindest of grannies is Monopoly. The cutthroat activity sees players try to amass fortunes while gleefully making opponents bankrupt. But it wasn't meant to be like that. It may surprise you to know that the inventor of the game imagined a far gentler, kinder pastime. But as I learned researching the history of Monopoly, her ideals and her name were squeezed out of the origin story. So take a break from your own gaming to listen again to a classic cautionary tale featuring the voice talent of Helena Bonham Carter as the inimitable Lizzie McGee. Whatever you do, do not pass go. In September 2019, the Toy and game giant Hasbro struck a blow in the battle over women's rights. Although it's not quite clear which side they were on, they published Ms. Monopoly, putting a new spin on Their classic board game. The tagline for this new version was the first game where women make more than men. They're not kidding. Female players start the game with more Monopoly money than male players and they get $240 each time they pass go rather than the traditional $200 for the boys. Why exactly is not clear. Some sort of joke? It wasn't even a consistent joke. Some of the Chance and Community Chest cards paid out more cash to male players. So what is the message? Women have been unfairly treated. Women need help to win. We don't actually know what feminism means, we. There is, however, one feature of the game that's hard to criticise. Instead of buying properties from around Atlantic City as in the classic game, players invest in inventions that were developed by women, such as Marian Donovan, the inventor of the leak proof diaper, Anna Connolly, the inventor of the external fire escape and Hedy Lamarr, the film star who in the 1940s co invented frequency hopping radio transmissions, a precursor to today's WI fi in musmonopoly. Each square represents one of these inventions. For example, instead of buying the prestige property Boardwalk, you could invest in chocolate chip cookies invented by Ruth Wakefield. And it's hard to argue with the sentiments expressed in Hasbro's advertisement for Ms. Monopoly, which begins with the simple Women hold just 10% of all patented inventions. The Ms. Monopoly game was widely derided as a confusing mass of mixed messages. But the miss Monopoly advert asks a simple, powerful isn't it time that the inventiveness of women was finally acknowledged by and rewarded? Well, isn't it? I'm Tim Harford and you're listening to Cautionary Tales. You may be familiar with the traditional story about the origins of Monopoly. I remember reading it myself as a child, which isn't surprising since the story itself was for decades included in every game box. The story goes as in 1933, the bleakest depths of the Great Depression, an unemployed steam radiator repairman from Philadelphia named Charles Darrow was struck with an idea to create a new board game about property trading. It was an act of desperation because Darrow had no money and a family to feed. But it was also an act of inspiration, since the game sprang fully formed from the brow of its creator. Darrow drew out the game board on a sheet of oilcloth. The board featured the familiar street names of Atlantic City, where Darrow once enjoyed taking his wife and children on vacation. It was a nostalgic decision aimed at cheering up a family that had fallen on hard times. The Darrows loved the game. Suspecting that he'd created something valuable, Charles Darrow tried to interest the big board game distributors. Milton Bradley turned him down. So did Parker Brothers. However, they later reconsidered when they saw how popular Darrow's homemade sets were. With the backing of Parker Brothers, Monopoly became a smash hit. Charles Darrow's fortune was assured, as was his reputation as the creator of one of the most successful games in the world. But as the journalist and historian Mary Pollon says in her book the Monopolists, the story wasn't exactly true. That's putting it kindly, because, as Polon's book makes perfectly clear, the story I read in my game box isn't true at all. The game of Monopoly did not come to Charles Darrow in a flash of inspiration. It was taught to him by his friends Charles and olive Todd. In 1932, the Todds played on a board with Go Jail Free Parking and Go to Jail at the Four Corners. With Chance and Community Chest, with the Electric Company and the waterworks and street names from around Atlantic City. When drawing up his Monopoly board, Charles Todd even made a mistake in the spelling of Marvin Gardens, swapping in an I to become Marvin Gardens. Charles Darrow's Monopoly board would later use not only the same squares in the same configuration with the same deed values. It would even repeat the same spelling error. After several evenings, pleasantly wild. Away with the game. Say, Todd, would you mind lending me a copy of the rules of that game?

Tim Harford (9:16)

I'd love to teach it to others. I want to make sure I get it right. Charles Todd was a little puzzled, but he obliged his friend. Soon after, to Todd's irritation, Darrow started avoiding him. He'd crossed the street when the Todds were coming the other way. Then came the blockbuster success of Monopoly with sparky graphics that Charles Darrow had begged free of charge from another friend, the cartoonist Franklin Alexander. Journalists repeated the rags to riches yarn that Darrow was spinning. Darrow's former friends, Charles and Olive Todd, were outraged, but not because they felt their idea had been stolen. They knew all along that Monopoly had never belonged to them in the first place. They had been taught the game by their friends, the brothers Jesse and Eugene Rayford. Jesse and Eugene had been the ones who named squares on the board after areas in Atlantic City. But they hadn't invented Monopoly either. They'd adapted a version they'd been taught by Ruth Hoskins, who was a trainee schoolteacher. So did Ruth Hoskins invent the game? No. It was circulating widely in the 1920s. It was even popular in economics departments. One influential player, Scott Nearing, was a socialist economics professor at the Wharton School who used a version of the game to teach the evils of corporate monopolies. This game was called Monopoly, and the square board had plenty of recognizable elements with 40 spaces, including chance, jail, go to jail, and numerous properties. But there were two ways to play the game. It could be played competitively as players tried to monopolise groups of property and bankrupt their opponents. Or it could be played cooperatively, with resources paid into the public purse, utilities supplying services for free, and each player's resources growing over time. The cooperative game was, of course, very dull. But Monopoly wasn't invented at the Wharton School. Professor Scott Nearing learned it in the utopian community called Arden in Delaware. Arden had been founded in 1900 and organized according to the principles of the economist, journalist, and social reformer Henry George. Henry George's most famous idea was that all land and natural resources ultimately belonged to society as a whole, so whoever owned them should be paying a hefty tax. And it was Henry George's idea of this single tax that the Arden version of Monopoly was designed to explore. This game, the progressive heaven or capitalist hell version of Monopoly, was called the Landlord's Game. Did the radical folk of Arden invent the Landlord's Game? No. It was dreamed up by a remarkable woman named Lizzie Magee. And is Lizzie Magee celebrated on the Ms. Monopoly board? I think you can guess the answer to that question. Cautionary tales will return in a moment. Amazon One Medical presents painful thoughts.

Tim Harford (19:43)

Yes, how to reach the children. What better method than through a board game? Lizzie McGee's the Landlord's Game would evolve and become more popular than she could ever have imagined. By the 1930s it existed in several popular versions, all of which took the competitive rather than cooperative approach. There was finance, sold by the Knapp Company, inflation, sold by Rudy Copeland of Fort Worth, Texas, and easy money, sold by Milton Bradley. But Lizzie McGee herself had been almost forgotten and so had the subversively educational version of her game. It turns out that when people play board games they'd rather try to crush their opponents than all accumulate resources together without obstacle or incident. No single person created Monopoly any more than a single person created chess or poker. But if you wanted to pick out the one creative soul who, who deserved the most credit, there is no question that it would be Lizzie Magee. So how come it was Charles Darrow and not Magee who became known as the lone genius who invented Monopoly? Remember the advertisement for Ms. Monopoly? Hasbro, the company that absorbed Parker Brothers, began with a lamentation. Women hold just 10% of all patented inventions. This situation is finally improving. Women made up less than 10% of patent holders born in the 1940s, but more than 15% of patent holders born in the 1970s. As millennials take over the process of patenting, who knows, we might get as high as 20% before long. In fact, we're on course to achieve gender parity in patents as early as the year 2135. Cheer up. So why has progress been so slow? One of the scholars who's been searching for answers is the economist Lisa Cook of Michigan State University. Professor Cook studies why certain groups of people seem to be shut out from the innovation economy, in particular, African Americans and women. For many decades, women had less than equal access to high quality education, especially technical education. For example, in the early 1950s, Eleanor Ostrom wanted to study economics at UCLA, but she was rejected because she didn't have the mathematical skills. She didn't have the mathematical skills because as a schoolgirl, she had been steered away from the subject because of her gender. Thankfully, Eleanor Ostrom had the last laugh. In 2009, she was the first woman to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in economics. It was astonishingly late for the profession to recognise the first female laureate, but as Lynn Ostrom was quick to say, she wouldn't be the last. As a result of both overt and subtle discrimination, women have been underrepresented in technical subjects such as mathematics, economics and engineering. That is changing, but slowly. Between 1970 and 2014, the proportion of PhDs in science, technology, engineering and mathematical subjects that were awarded to women more than quadrupled. And if a lack of educational opportunity is a problem, so too is a lack of mentors. A huge study conducted by a team of economists led by Raj Chetty of Harvard found that young people were far more likely to become inventors if they could see other inventors around them, especially if their own parents were inventors. Gender matters. Here, for example, female inventors seem to be far more inspiring to girls than. Than Male inventors are. And since there are fewer women inventors around to inspire girls, the problem is a self perpetuating spiral. Indeed, Chetty and his colleagues estimate that if young girls had the same exposure to female inventors as young boys did to male inventors, they would innovate more than two and a half times as much as now. And the gender innovation gap would be less than half as big. That's why the Ms. Monopoly set and advertising campaign with its celebration of women inventors is so important. But among the female inventors credited on the board, Lizzie Magee is conspicuous by her absence. It is an astonishing missed opportunity. But it's also a mystery. How did Lizzie McGee find herself so comprehensively airbrushed out of history? And why don't the publishers of Monopoly want to acknowledge her more than a century later? Could it be perhaps that they're a little ashamed? Cautionary tales will be back in a moment. Amazon Pharmacy presents Painful Thoughts.

Tim Harford (30:15)

Even today, few patent holders are women. In Magee's time, less than one in a hundred were. She was a member of a small club of female inventors. So if she had a patent, what went wrong? The economist Lisa Cook knows that the innovation gap runs deeper than educational opportunity or even the presence of mentors. There's also the question of whose ideas get taken seriously. You can have a good idea and you can even get it patented. But that does not mean your idea will thrive if your face doesn't fit. For example, Lisa Cook's own cousin, the chemist Percy Julian, was repeatedly turned down for jobs as an academic and as a corporate researcher because he was black. Eventually, Julian became the first African American to run a large corporate laboratory at Glidden. He developed techniques for producing hormones such as oestrogen and cortisone and earned several patents. In 1950, Percy Julian was named Chicagoan of the Year by the Chicago Sun Times. It was the same year that infuriated that a black man had moved into a nice white part of Chicago, racists tried to burn down his house. If you're suffering from discrimination, as both women and African American inventors were throughout the 20th century, then Professor Cook's work makes it clear that having a patent might not be enough. A patent isn't much good if nobody respects it. Consider the case of Garrett Morgan. He was born in the 1870s. He was a gifted inventor, developing products as varied as a gas mask, a traffic light and hair straightening cream. But he was also African American, which didn't fit America's idea of what an inventor should look like. In one dramatic incident in 1916, Morgan and his brother led a rescue of several victims of an underground explosion near Lake Erie. The rescuers used Morgan's invention of a firefighter, Smokehood. Officials awarded medals to the white members of the rescue party, but not to the Morgan brothers themselves. And while the publicity about the daring rescue helped boost sales of the Smokehood, several Southern cities cancelled their orders when they discovered that Morgan was black. Morgan often concealed his race, even using surrogates to pretend to be him when he was trying to sell his inventions. You can't blame him. Lizzie Magee didn't have to fear being firebombed like Percy Julian or having her wares boycotted like Garrett Morgan. But she did have to fear being ignored. Her game wasn't selling and she wasn't thriving. She was frustrated at having her freedoms and opportunities constrained by her gender. A couple of years after patenting the Landlord's game, she took out a newspaper advertisement offering herself for sale.

Tim Harford (33:50)

But while it made a splash, this outrageous stunt did not seem to turn the tide either for feminism or for Lizzie McGee herself. A few years later, in her 40s, she did marry. Her game continued to languish. Like Garrett Morgan, Lizzie Magee did not fit the stereotype of a creative genius. By the time Monopoly had become a bestseller, more than 30 years after Magee filed the patent for the Landlord's Game, she was an unconventional old woman with unconventional political ideals, still trying to get the world to pay attention to the case for progressive single taxation. She was no match for Charles Darrow, the smooth talking family man peddling his version of the American dream. Darrow charmed the Todds into giving him the Monopoly rules in every detail. Charmed the artist Franklin Alexander into donating the designs that gave Monopoly its clean modern look, Charmed Parker Brothers into treating him as a creative genius. And charmed the press into repeating his tale of creativity and adversity, Carving this fictional origin story in stone. With the help of the publicists at Parker brothers. In 1935, Charles Darrow put that story in writing to the president of Parker Brothers. It is hard to imagine that the company believed him. They must have understood that he was lying to them. One internal memo acknowledged that Darrow had appropriated the name Monopoly and frankly and I think without prejudice that the original trading game came out in 1902. Nevertheless, Parker Brothers applied for a patent on Monopoly and managed to secure it with remarkable speed. Then came the business of acquiring the rights to rival games. Parker Brothers came to an arrangement with Milton Bradley about their game Easy Money and paid a large sum for the rights to the game Finance. They sued the publisher of the game, Inflation. Yet somehow Parker Brothers ended up paying him at least $10,000. Relative to the wages of the day, that's half a million dollars. Which does suggest that Parker Brothers didn't really want to put their patent to the test. Charles Darrow kept telling journalists the story of his moment of inspiration. And people such as Charles and Olive Todd, while irritated, didn't feel able to pursue the matter. After all, while they knew Charles Darrow hadn't invented the game, they knew they hadn't invented it either. So that just left Lizzie Magee. In one corner, an elderly left wing feminist desperate to teach the children of the world the merits of the single tax system through her obscure board game. In the other corner, a smooth talking Charles Darrow with a tail to tug at heartstrings and a host of sharp suits from Parker Brothers. It was no contest. One November day in 1935, traveling from Salem, Massachusetts all the way to Arlington, Virginia, George Parker himself, the 70 year old founder of Parker Brothers, paid a call to the house of Lizzie Magee Phillips.

Summary

Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford: "Do NOT Pass GO! (Classic)"

Release Date: January 3, 2025

Introduction: Monopoly’s Dark Side

The Myth of Charles Darrow

Notable Quote:

"Monopoly became a smash hit. Charles Darrow's fortune was assured, as was his reputation as the creator of one of the most successful games in the world." – Tim Harford [08:45]

Unveiling the True Origins: Lizzie Magee and the Landlord’s Game

Notable Quote:

"Lizzie Magee broke the mold in so many ways... She actually had the determination to follow through on her dreams despite all the obstacles." – Tim Harford [28:58]

Gender and Innovation: The Struggle for Recognition

Notable Quote:

"If young girls had the same exposure to female inventors as young boys did to male inventors, they would innovate more than two and a half times as much as now." – Tim Harford [32:10]

The Downfall of the Landlord’s Game

Notable Quote:

"Lizzie Magee did not fit the stereotype of a creative genius... she was desperate for her game to reach the audience it deserved." – Tim Harford [37:22]

The Legacy and Lessons Learned

Notable Quote:

"Having a patent might not be enough. A patent isn't much good if nobody respects it." – Tim Harford [30:15]

Conclusion: A Call for Recognition and Change

Notable Quote:

"Maybe it will achieve no more social change than Lizzie McGee did with her cooperative version of the Landlord's Game. But it seems worth a try." – Tim Harford [40:59]