International Women's Day

 

This year's theme is to Embrace Equity.

That is to be fair and impartial, and it refers to value.  According to the International Labour Organization, globally, women earn 51 cents for each dollar earned by men.

So we continue to raise awareness about discrimination, and we celebrate women's achievements.

Recently I learned about Elizabeth Magie.

Lizzie was born in 1866 in a progressive home.  Her father was a newspaper publisher and abolitionist who toured Illinois with Abraham Lincoln.  She was a writer of short stories and poetry, and she was an outspoken activist for the feminist movement.

She believed women were as capable as men in inventing, business, and other professional areas.  At the age of 26, she received a patent for her invention that allowed paper to go through the rollers of a typewriter more easily.  At the time, women were credited with less than 1% of all patents.

Lizzie was also an advocate of Georgism, a single tax movement.  It is an economic perspective in which the government could create a universal land tax based on the usefulness, size, and location of the land.  This would motivate people to cultivate land and it would redistribute wealth to eradicate the idea that landlords held the power.

This led to her patent for The Landlord's Game.  In 1906 she and her friends established the Economic Game Co to self-publish her game.

Her game would go on to become Monopoly, but her version included a set of rules called "Prosperity."

Every player would win money anytime another player gained a property and the game was won when the person with the least doubled their resources.  A game of collaboration and social good.  

The hope was to teach people how different we feel playing Monopoly versus Prosperity, to one day change national policies.  When Parker Brothers adopted the game in 1934, they did away with Prosperity and gave credit to Charles Darrow.

She spoke out in 1936 and received some acknowledgement from Parker Brothers, but it wasn't until 1973, when Ralph Anspach wanted to create the Anti-Monopoly game, that Magie's patents were really made public.

She died in 1948 and never got to realize her impact on the board game community and American culture.

Lizzie also developed Bargain Day, where shoppers compete in a department store; and King's Men, an abstract strategy game.

IWD