photo #8503422

In 1936, Lizzie Magie, then in her 70s, was photographed holding her original The Landlord’s Game board — the forerunner to Monopoly. She patented the game in 1904 to expose the dangers of land speculation and monopolies, hoping to promote Henry George’s “single tax” philosophy. When Parker Brothers bought her patent in the 1930s, they rebranded it as Monopoly, stripped out its moral lesson, and turned it into a celebration of aggressive real estate hoarding — the very thing Magie had hoped to warn against.