the mccormick family was the founder of the parker brothers.
the mccormick family was the founder of the parker brothers.
who was the founder of the parker brothers?
the mccormick family
parker brothers was founded by george s. parker. parker's philosophy deviated from the prevalent theme of board game design; he believed that games should be played for enjoyment and did not need to emphasize morals and values. he created his first game, called "banking", in 1883 when he was 16. "banking" is a game in which players borrow money from the bank and try to generate wealth by guessing how well they could do. the game includes 160 cards which foretell their failure or success. the game was so popular among family and friends that his brother, charles parker, urged him to publish it. george approached two boston publishers with the idea, but was unsuccessful. not discouraged, he spent $40 to publish 500 sets of "banking". he eventually sold all but twelve copies, making a profit of $100.
parker brothers
robert barton, president of parker brothers, bought the rights to "finance" from knapp electric later in 1935. "finance" would be redeveloped, updated, and continued to be sold by parker brothers into the 1970s. other board games based on a similar principle, such as a game called "inflation", designed by rudy copeland and published by the thomas sales co., in fort worth, texas, also came to the attention of parker brothers management in the 1930s, after they began sales of "monopoly". copeland continued sales of the latter game after parker brothers attempted a patent lawsuit against him. parker brothers held the magie and darrow patents, but settled with copeland rather than going to trial, since copeland was prepared to have witnesses testify that they had played "monopoly" before darrow's "invention" of the game. the court settlement allowed copeland to license parker brothers' patents. other agreements were reached on "big business" by transogram, and "easy money" by milton bradley, based on daniel layman's "finance". another clone, called "fortune", was sold by parker brothers, and became combined with "finance" in some editions.
history of the board game monopoly