Every so often NPR provides a report on a mass phenomena that is so rich in detail, so entirely truthful, and so well scripted that you feel like you are watching a documentary and not listening to one. The incredible Juan Williams this morning gave a feature called Monopoly, Present at the Creation, which highlighted the game’s founders and the ethical and business and ideological backgrounds of the game.
I always had a sneaking suspicion, even as a kid, that the game, while played often by billionaire real estate tycoons, was slightly subversive. It turns out I was only partly correct — the original inventor was Elizabeth Magie, who in 1871 used to the game to teach the virtues of a progressive national economy. The gentleman who popularized it — and began producing the game on oil cloth, was named Charles Darrow. The game was superbly popular during the Depression, when folks couldn’t get enough of feeling like they were rich, even for an evening around the candlelight or light bulb. In any case, Mr. Williams does a far better job than I do at describing the political and historical ins and outs of my favorite board game.