- Do you know the history of board games?
There are hundreds of millions of board games sold every year, with $4 billion in revenue. As common as they are now, they were barely known 150 years ago.
150 years ago they were pretty much unheard of. When it comes to the big players in board games, you have already heard of them. They are none other than the Parker Brothers and Milton Bradley.
Iconic games come from their rivalry. 
The US was a divided nation in fall of 1860. As Americans began to go West, it was a time of wondering if the west would be free or have slaves.
Milton Bradley was a printmaker at time and wanted to capitalize on the presidential election. He grew up in religious house with a father who was a poor textile worker.
He was introverted and filled with ideas but warm and personable, too. Bradley was printing costly lithographs of an unlikely presidential candidate, Abraham Lincoln.
An 11-year-old from upstate New York writes Lincoln a letter and suggests that he grow a beard to look more stately. The print poster Bradley made had Lincoln without a beard and were now worthless. So much so that people were asking for their money back. Lincoln didn’t look the same without a beard.
Bradley’s name would become synonymous as some of the most iconic board games of all time and create a $350 million dollar business. But for now he’s got a young wife to support and is on the brink of ruin.
His friend, George Tapley, was struggling as a book binder. The two friends got together and Tapley says, “Let’s play a game.”
They played Mansion of Happiness. This game was one of the very first American board games. Bradley had never seen a board game.
And games back then were very different with themes like life, death, religion and teaching.
Other games had shady reputations. Card games were big because people like
to gamble and certain people thought it was a sin to gamble. Dice were often thought of as worse.
Original mansion of happiness had dice but in the states it came with a teetotum wooden spindle with hexagonal base and six numbers. In the game, you go forward by landing on virtues like sincerity or move back for vices like drinking. The goal is to get to the mansion of happiness which people thought represented heaven.
Bradley loved it. This game was on a printing label stuck to the back of cardboard and here he was in the printing business. He thought, how about if I invent a game?
After weeks of playing around, he created the Checkered Game of Life. The game was very dark and even had a suicide square. For now, he was making them by hand from his print shop.
The original 400 he printed sold out in no time. And then Lincoln won the 1860 election.
The Civil War was about to start and sales of the checkered game of life fell significantly. Bradley considered making weapons for the army to make ends meet but he decided to do something else instead.
One day, he walked past infantry men, who were off duty with essentially nothing to do. He sees a captive audience for board games and from there creates the first travel-sized board games.
He made Chess, Checkers, Domino’s, and The Checkered Way of Life.
Bradley sold 270,000 units within the first year and really established his business. Everyone knew who he was.
However, there was someone else who wanted in on the board game business. He was a New Englander, aged 16, named George Parker and he was about to change everything.
For more, follow the link and read History of The Big Players In Board Games: Part Two.