Jigsaw Puzzle
Around 1760, English mapmaker John Spilsbury pasted one of his maps to a board, cut around the borders, and created the first jigsaw puzzle. The idea caught on, and various British manufacturers created educational puzzles to teach geography, history, and Holy Scripture. Puzzles crossed the Atlantic slowly, however. The first American puzzles appeared around 1850, and, like their predecessors, they featured maps cut from wood. Following the Civil War (1861-1865), well-known game producers such as Milton Bradley and Parker Brothers offered puzzles that combined educational value with entertainment. In 1908, Parker Brothers introduced its Pastime puzzles, featuring pieces cut as animals, letters, and geometric shapes. Other manufacturers introduced interlocking pieces about the same time. These easier puzzles created a small craze, but the real heyday of puzzles emerged in the 1930s. Manufacturers mass-produced die-cut cardboard puzzles and sold them cheaply enough for most Americans to afford, even in the midst of the Great Depression. Newsstands offered weekly jigsaw puzzles and magazines devoted to the pastime. The puzzle craze faded in the 1950s, as television increasingly dominated home entertainment. But even today, families still enjoy the challenge of a good puzzle.
Jump Rope
"Cinderella, dressed in yellow, went up stairs to kiss a fellow…." For generations, American girls have spent their childhoods jumping rope. But it really began as a boy's activity in the 17th century among Dutch settlers. Girls grabbed the rope handles in the 1800s even though most advice books cautioned against too much exertion. As leisure time increased over the course of the 19th century, girls took to jumping rope in increasing numbers. By the early 1900s, girls' games focused on social activities, while boys' games centered on competition. Jumping rope highlighted this change. Not only did girls tend to jump rope in groups, but they also accompanied their jump rope games with rhythmic songs. Some, such as "Teddy bear, teddy bear, turn around," emphasized acrobatic skills, requiring the girls to perform the various feats mentioned in the tune. Others, like "Cinderella," spoke directly of relationships, especially the prospects and perils of matrimony.
Marbles
Ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans all played with marbles made of stone or polished nuts. Shakespeare mentioned marbles in his play Twelfth Night. The earliest settlers brought them to America from Europe, and even a few founding fathers shot a skilled game! A kids' game, marbles has also become an officially recognized sport with its own world championship competition governed by the Official Set of State and Interstate Rules. Stone or clay formed the earliest marbles, but the alabaster "alley taws" made better shooters than the cheaper, clay "commoneys." In the mid-19th century, a German glassblower invented a pair of special scissors to cut the molten glass, making glass marbles affordable for the first time. Glass marbles quickly dominated the market, particularly after industrial machines made them more efficiently, lowering the price. Valued as much for their beauty as the games played with them, marbles inspired one 19th-century enthusiast to describe the "twisted spiral of colored filament" in glass marbles as "thin music translated into colored glass." Parents frowned when kids "lost their marbles" in games of chance, and today both children and adults consider marbles collectibles as well as time-honored toys.
Monopoly®
Monopoly, the most popular board game in history, began life as The Landlord's Game in 1904. Elizabeth Magie devised the game to point out the social pitfalls of unequal wealth among people. But instead, players greedily collected huge piles of money and property, delighting in opponents' financial troubles. Circulated informally at first, the game only gained popularity when Pennsylvanian Charles Darrow produced the first commercial version in 1934. By that time, several changes had worked their way into Magie's educational tool. Players could raise rents by "building" houses and hotels, and creating a "monopoly" of properties allowed incredibly steep rents. Squash the competition and drive up profits-not bad, eh? Darrow produced 5,000 copies at his own expense and sold them through a Philadelphia department store. Hearing of his success, Parker Brothers bought the rights in 1935 and sales soared. At the height of the Great Depression, Monopoly was the best selling game in the country. Since then, Monopoly has appeared in 40 countries and 25 foreign languages. The original game used property names familiar to residents of Atlantic City, New Jersey. But after 1994, Parker Brothers began producing versions representing major cities throughout the country.
| 