The secret history of Monopoly
Witness History
BBC
4.5 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 31 December 2021
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In 1904, a left-wing American feminist called Lizzy Magie patented a board game that evolved into what we now know as Monopoly. But 30 years later, when Monopoly was first marketed in the United States during the Great Depression, it was an out-of-work salesman from Pennsylvania who was credited with inventing it. Louise Hidalgo has been talking to American journalist Mary Pilon about the hidden history of one of the world's most popular board games, and to the economics professor Ralph Anspach who unearthed the story.
Picture: A family playing a game of Monopoly in the 1930s (Credit: SSPL/Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Rory Stewart and I grew up wanting to be a hero and I'm still fascinated by the ideas of heroism. |
| 0:08.9 | In my new series, I'm taking in the long sweep of history from Achilles to Zelensky and asking, what is a hero? |
| 0:16.1 | Simply doing your job, being a decent human being. |
| 0:20.0 | A true hero is someone who just kind of shines by |
| 0:23.1 | their own light and that light is to be recognised by others. The long history of |
| 0:27.3 | heroism with me, Rory Stewart. Listen on BBC Sounds. Hello and thank you for downloading the podcast of Witness History from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:43.2 | All this week, we're taking a festive look at the history of toys and games. |
| 0:47.9 | In the final episode, Louise Hidalgo unravels the secret history of Monopoly. |
| 0:53.7 | The board game was first marketed in 1935 by the American company Parker Brothers. |
| 1:00.1 | But the true story of where it was invented, by whom and why, is far from straightforward. |
| 1:06.4 | And I've got a hotel on Parkley, the blue one. |
| 1:12.1 | Ha, little fact. |
| 1:14.2 | You've got three stations. |
| 1:18.9 | It's been played by generations of children, parents and grandparents |
| 1:23.1 | in more than 100 countries around the world. |
| 1:26.6 | But it wasn't until the 1970s, 40 years after Parker Brothers first began marketing it, |
| 1:32.9 | that an economics professor from San Francisco called Ralph Ansbach |
| 1:36.7 | uncovered the story of Monopoly and where it had come from. |
| 1:40.3 | Do not, Pascal, do not collect 200 pounds. |
| 1:46.7 | To me, it's indisputable that we would not know about the history of Monopoly without Ralph Ansbach. Journalist Mary Palin was working at the Wall Street |
| 1:52.3 | Journal when she first came across Ralph Ansbach. I was going to mention in passing, blah, blah, |
| 1:57.2 | Monopoly was invented during the Great Depression. And I looked and I looked and there were conflicting stories. And I felt like an idiot. You know, we were at the time writing about very complex financial concepts and I couldn't get the sentence about the board game right. So I reached out on a whim to Ralph Onspot who had seen had been involved in litigation with Parker Brothers decades ago. And I contacted him and he said, oh, yeah, I know all about the history monopoly. |
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