The Monopolists

What if one of the world’s most beloved games—the one that fills your family gatherings with laughter and rivalry—was built on a lie? In The Monopolists, journalist Mary Pilon investigates the secret history behind Monopoly, revealing that its true origins are far from the rags-to-riches myth Parker Brothers sold to millions. Instead of being the genius brainchild of an out-of-work salesman named Charles Darrow, the game was initially designed three decades earlier by a progressive woman named Lizzie Magie as a warning against the harms of monopolistic power.

Pilon presents a gripping narrative of invention, suppression, and rediscovery—a story that not only upends what you thought you knew about Monopoly but also sheds light on how corporate storytelling shapes history itself. The core argument running through The Monopolists is that what we celebrate as entrepreneurial success often hides a deeper chain of forgotten innovators, cultural influences, and social ideologies. Monopoly, in this view, becomes a mirror of American capitalism—both its corruptions and its imaginative resilience.

From Anti-Monopoly to Monopoly

At the heart of the book is Ralph Anspach, a 1970s economics professor who, appalled by the monopolistic practices of oil cartels during the energy crisis, decided to create a board game called Anti-Monopoly. That decision led him into a decade-long legal and moral war with Parker Brothers and its parent company, General Mills. Seeking to defend his right to the game’s title, Anspach stumbled upon buried evidence that Monopoly’s official origin story was false. His obsession with uncovering the truth turned into both a legal crusade and a historical detective story that exposed the suppressed legacy of Lizzie Magie and the “folk evolution” of the game.

Lizzie Magie and the Forgotten Feminist Vision

Pilon brings to life Lizzie Magie, an inventor and feminist who devised The Landlord’s Game in 1904. Drawing inspiration from economist Henry George and his single-tax movement, she used her game to teach players about the destructive effects of land monopolies and economic inequality. Magie even designed two sets of rules: one that rewarded cooperation and one that rewarded monopolization, to demonstrate how different systems shape behavior. Yet her moral message would later be stripped away as the game was transformed into the capitalist fantasy we know today.

Corporate Myth-Making and Cultural Memory

When Parker Brothers bought Magie’s patent decades later, they buried her contribution behind the more marketable story of Charles Darrow—the unemployed tinkerer turned millionaire. Their decision was not just business strategy; it was myth-making. As Pilon shows, this rewriting of history exemplifies how corporations monopolize not just markets but also narratives. The tale of the “American dreamer” inventor conveniently aligned with Depression-era ideals of individual perseverance, whereas Magie’s socialist-inspired critique of capitalism did not.

Why This Story Matters Today

Pilon’s investigation isn’t just about a board game—it’s about ownership of ideas, gender bias in innovation, and the blurred boundaries between culture and commerce. Her book reveals how control over intellectual property can determine who gets remembered and who gets erased. Moreover, the story reflects broader struggles in American life: between monopoly and freedom, capital and morality, truth and marketing. As you move through the chapters, you’ll see how the journey from The Landlord’s Game to Anti-Monopoly encapsulates an entire century of economic ethics and power dynamics.

Throughout this summary, you’ll explore the intertwined lives of Lizzie Magie, Charles Darrow, Ralph Anspach, and the Parker family empire. You’ll also encounter vibrant settings—from utopian communities like Arden, Delaware, to corporate showrooms in Depression-era Manhattan—and meet the thinkers who fought to redefine fairness and competition. By the end, you’ll see Monopoly not as a simple pastime but as a case study in how history itself can be bought, sold, and rewritten.

Long before Monopoly became a household staple, Lizzie Magie was sketching its ancestor by lamplight in early-1900s Washington, D.C. A writer, inventor, and supporter of women’s rights, Magie designed The Landlord’s Game to illustrate the unfairness of unchecked monopoly power. Inspired by Henry George’s economic theories and his idea of a “single tax” on land value, she wanted to make economic justice fun, tangible, and teachable. Her game, patented in 1904 and updated in 1924, was intended as a tool for enlightenment, not entertainment.

A Game of Moral Imagination

Magie’s concept was revolutionary. She designed a circular board with properties, railroads, taxes, and even a jail space. Players could earn money by investing in land and collecting rent, but Magie included two sets of rules—one cooperative and one competitive—to show the impact of different value systems. Under the “prosperity” rules, wealth creation benefited everyone; under the “monopoly” rules, a single winner emerged and everyone else went bankrupt. Her goal was pedagogical: to expose how monopolistic systems breed inequality.

An Early Feminist and Inventor

At a time when women inventors were anomalies, Magie patented both a typewriter improvement and her game. She also campaigned for women’s rights and economic reform. Through The Landlord’s Game, she demonstrated how complex social ideas could be communicated through play—a notion decades ahead of its time. Yet because she was a woman in a male-dominated field, her intellectual property was easily overlooked and later exploited.

The Lost Legacy

Magie’s game spread organically through progressive circles, colleges, and communities like Arden, Delaware—a utopian single-tax colony. There, Quakers, economists, and reformers played homemade versions and adapted local names to the properties. Over time, The Landlord’s Game evolved into “The Monopoly Game.” But when Parker Brothers came calling decades later, they minimized Magie’s influence, buying her patent for $500 and burying her anti-capitalist message beneath a capitalist fairytale. Today, scholars and economic reformers see her as a pioneer of educational gaming—an innovator whose true genius was nearly erased by the very forces she sought to critique.

When Lizzie Magie’s Landlord’s Game reached the communal experiment of Arden, Delaware, it found fertile soil. Arden’s founders, Frank Stephens and William Price, envisioned a society guided by Henry George’s philosophy—no private land ownership, shared resources, and creative freedom. Residents played Magie’s game to test the effects of property accumulation and cooperation. Their versions included whimsical local references—‘Boomtown,’ ‘Goat Alley,’ and ‘Lord Blueblood’s Estate.’

Quakers and the Birth of the ‘Monopoly Game’

By the 1910s, Ardenites and Quakers had remade the game in their image. They used it as a teaching tool at Wharton and other universities, where professors like Scott Nearing linked it to discussions of capitalism’s social costs. These handmade copies—crafted with crayons, cloth, and wood—migrated across the country. Through this folk transmission, players began calling it simply “the monopoly game,” using it to explore the moral tension between cooperation and greed. Ironically, the version that glorified monopolies became the popular favorite.

The Atlantic City Transformation

The next major evolution came when Quakers in Atlantic City created their own variants in the 1920s. Ruth Hoskins and Cyril and Ruth Harvey, teachers at the Atlantic City Friends School, customized the property names to reflect their seaside town—Boardwalk, Park Place, and Marvin Gardens (misspelled as ‘Marvin’). Their gatherings of friends and family became “monopoly nights,” blending community with competition. The irony? These pacifist Quakers—who opposed gambling and exploitation—created the board that would later symbolize competitive capitalism.

As the game flowed through social networks—from Arden to Philadelphia to university campuses—it exemplified “folk innovation,” the collective shaping of an idea without a single inventor. But in America’s mythology of invention, collective creativity often loses to the lone-genius myth. It was only a matter of time before someone capitalized on this diffusion—and claimed it as his own.

In the depths of the Great Depression, out-of-work salesman Charles Darrow encountered the homemade “monopoly game” through friends like Charles and Olive Todd, who had learned it from the Raifords and Atlantics City Quakers. Seeing commercial potential where others saw a parlor pastime, Darrow copied the design—complete with the ‘Marvin Gardens’ misspelling—and began producing versions from his home. He added commercial polish: oilcloth boards, neat typography, and a cheerful aesthetic that promised prosperity amid despair.

Marketing the American Dream

When Parker Brothers first rejected Darrow’s submission as too complex, he sold copies privately through word of mouth and department stores. Then, in 1935, desperate for a hit, the company reversed course. They bought Monopoly from Darrow for a modest fee and residuals, then crafted a Depression-friendly narrative: an everyman who invented a game in his basement and became rich—a living symbol of self-reliance. This myth resonated powerfully with struggling Americans and helped Parker Brothers sell millions of sets.

Erasing the Feminist Founder

To secure their monopoly on Monopoly, Parker Brothers quietly bought Lizzie Magie’s old patents. Executives, including Robert Barton, admitted decades later under oath that they did so only to “cover the waterfront” legally. Magie received no royalties, only $500, and her name vanished from the narrative. The company buried her teaching version of the Landlord’s Game, publishing just a token edition that went nowhere.

Through advertising, Parker Brothers transformed a grassroots social critique into the ultimate capitalist celebration. Monopoly now rewarded exactly what Magie had condemned: ruthless accumulation. In doing so, the company didn’t merely shape a product—it colonized the public’s imagination. As Pilon notes, this is how corporate myth replaces communal memory—by selling us a story that flatters our ideals while muting its inconvenient truths.

To understand how Parker Brothers could rewrite history so successfully, Pilon dives into the company’s long evolution from a Salem family business into an industrial powerhouse. Founded in the 1880s by George Parker, it grew by mastering the art of selling leisure. George believed games should entertain rather than moralize—a radical idea in Victorian America. By the 1930s, under his son-in-law Robert Barton, Parker Brothers had become a symbol of wholesome American fun even as it mirrored the monopolies its games portrayed.

Business in the Age of Play

Parker Brothers’ success stemmed from its instinct for timing. After the 1929 crash, America sought escapism. Monopoly offered both fantasy wealth and moral comfort—it let people fail safely at capitalism. The game’s rise resuscitated the company during the Depression, proving the lucrative connection between entertainment and aspiration. Barton exploited this blend by emphasizing image control: clean design, clear storytelling, and exclusivity ensured the brand’s dominance.

Owning the Narrative

Pilon paints Barton as pragmatic but cold. He saw Magie’s original as “completely worthless” and focused on protecting Parker Brothers from competitors like Milton Bradley’s Easy Money or Knapp’s Finance. The company routinely bought, buried, or sued rivals to secure its monopoly. This behavior mirrored the very trusts that early antimonopolists had fought. Ironically, the success of Monopoly depended on monopolistic tactics—a perfect reflection of its name. Parker Brothers wasn’t just marketing a game; it was performing the system it mythologized.

Fast-forward to the 1970s. Amid gas shortages and economic malaise, Ralph Anspach—an economics professor at San Francisco State—decided to fight monopolistic thinking through a board game. His Anti-Monopoly let players break up corporations rather than build them. What started as a teaching experiment exploded into a national bestseller—until Parker Brothers demanded he halt production for trademark infringement. That threat ignited a decade-long legal odyssey that would redefine intellectual property and restore buried history.

David vs. Goliath in Court

Anspach’s defense rested on two bold claims: first, that Monopoly’s name was generic; and second, that Parker Brothers’ trademark rested on fraudulent origins. Through tireless detective work and help from his family, Anspach unearthed archival material linking Monopoly back to Magie and the Quakers. Depositions from Parker Brothers’ own executives—including Robert Barton—confirmed that Darrow was not the true inventor. The trial became not only a copyright dispute but a cultural reckoning with decades of corporate deception.

Revealing the Hidden Inventor

Anspach’s research uncovered Magie’s patents and a 1936 Washington Evening Star article where she publicly denounced the Darrow myth. Through interviews, depositions, and surviving boards, he connected the dots from Magie’s Landlord’s Game to the Quaker boards to Darrow’s copy. Although he initially lost in court—Parker Brothers even buried thousands of Anti-Monopoly sets in a landfill—Anspach eventually prevailed on appeal. In 1982, the Ninth Circuit Court ruled the Monopoly trademark invalid as generic, effectively vindicating him and reaffirming Magie’s forgotten place in history.

One of The Monopolists’ most striking revelations is how effectively corporations fabricate cultural memory. Parker Brothers and later Hasbro maintained the Darrow legend well into the 21st century, even after evidence disproved it. As Pilon notes, this persistence stems from our emotional attachment to simple stories. The self-made inventor fits the American dream; a woman critiquing capitalism does not. Thus, the myth prevails, not out of ignorance but because it satisfies collective desire.

The Narrative Economy

Pilon parallels Monopoly’s marketing myth with modern corporate storytelling—from Steve Jobs to Elon Musk—where archetypes of genius overshadow collaborative truth. The company that rebranded an anti-monopoly lesson into a pro-capitalist success story also influenced how business history itself gets told. Monopoly’s endurance shows that profitable myths can outlast facts when they align with national identity.

Who Owns Innovation?

By the end, Pilon poses an unsettling question: How many other Lizzie Magies have vanished from history? Whether in technology, science, or art, women and collective inventors often see their work absorbed by corporate systems that reward marketability over accuracy. Her narrative invites readers to view intellectual property not just legally, but morally—as a terrain where justice and storytelling intertwine. In rediscovering Monopoly’s true origins, she reminds us that innovation thrives not in monopolies, but in open play.