The Mansion of Happiness - Context

Context

With the industrialization and urbanization of the United States in the early 19th century, the American middle class experienced an increase in leisure time. The home gradually lost its traditional role as the center of economic production and became the locus of leisure activities and education under the supervision of mothers. As a result, the demand increased for children's board games emphasizing literacy and Christian principles, morals, and values. Advances in papermaking and printing technology during the era made the publication of inexpensive board games possible, and the technological invention of chromolithography made colorful board games a welcome addition to the parlor tabletop.

One of the earliest children's board games published in America was The Mansion of Happiness (1843), "the progenitor of American board games". Like other children's games that followed in its wake, The Mansion of Happiness was based on the Puritan world view that Christian virtue and deeds were assurances of happiness and success in life. Even game mechanics were influenced by the Puritan view. A spinner or a top-like teetotum, for instance, was utilized in children's board games rather than dice, which were then associated with Satan and gambling. While the Puritan view forbade game playing on the Sabbath, The Mansion of Happiness and similar games with high moral content would have been permitted for children in more liberal households.

In 1860, Milton Bradley developed a radically different concept of success in The Checkered Game of Life, the first American board game rewarding players for worldly ventures such as attending college, being elected to Congress, and getting rich. Virtue became a means to an end rather than an end in itself. Daily life was the focus of the game with secular virtues such as thrift, ambition, and neatness receiving more emphasis than religious virtues. Indeed, the only suggestion of religion in Bradley's game was the marriage altar. The Checkered Game of Life was wildly popular, selling 40,000 copies in its first year.

Protestant America gradually began viewing the accumulation of material goods and the cultivation of wealth as signs of God's blessing, and, with the decade of economic expansion and optimism in the 1880s, wealth became the defining characteristic of American success. Protestant values shifted from virtuous Christian living to values based on materialism and competitive, capitalist behavior. Being a good Christian and a successful capitalist were not incompatible. Dice lost their taint during the period, and replaced teetotums in games.

In a twist on The Mansion of Happiness, McLoughlin Brothers and Parker Brothers released several games in the late 1880s based on the then-popular Algeresque rags to riches theme. Games such as Game of the District Messenger Boy, or Merit Rewarded, Messenger Boy, Game of the Telegraph Boy, and The Office Boy allowed players to emulate the successful capitalist. Players began these games as company underlings, newbies, or gofers, and, with luck, won the game with a seat in the President's Office (rather than a seat in Heaven, as in The Mansion of Happiness) or as Head of the Firm. In Parker Brothers' The Office Boy, spaces designating carelessness, inattentiveness, and dishonesty sent the player back on the track while spaces designating capability, earnestness, and honesty advanced him toward the goal. Such games reflected the belief that the enterprising American – regardless of his background, humble or privileged – would be rewarded under the American capitalist system, and insinuated that success was equated with increased social status via the accumulation of wealth.

Wealth and goods became game rewards during the last decades of the 19th century with the winner of McLoughlin Brothers' The Game of Playing Department Store, for instance, being the player who carefully spent his money accumulating the most goods in a department store. Bulls and Bears: The Great Wall St. Game promised players they would feel like "speculators, bankers, and brokers", and the 1885 catalog advertisement for McLoughlin Brothers Monopolist informed the interested, "On this board the great struggle between Capital and Labor can be fought out to the satisfaction of all parties, and, if the players are successful, they can break the Monopolist and become Monopolists themselves".