He and his lawyer established that the trademarked Monopoly game Parker Brothers bought in the '30s from Charles Darrow was itself heavily influenced by the Landlord's Game, patented in 1904 by Lizzie Magie. The legal case continued to turn in Anspach's favor.
#Original monopoly 1935 free
"Six hours of digging in near zero cold failed to turn up any," the Free Press reported on Jan. A federal court had overturned the order to destroy the games, and Anspach wanted to reclaim a couple as souvenirs. Three years later, Anspach and Foster returned to the site. Pilon, who was a consultant for the PBS documentary, interviewed Anspach extensively for her book. Parker Brothers "wanted to make it theatrical," Pilon said in a phone interview. A photograph shows Foster, his back to the camera, standing atop a pile of trashed games. to the landfill, where they were ground beneath the tracks of a bulldozer and buried," according to a story the next day in the Mankato Free Press. On July 5, 1977, as news cameras rolled, "about 40,000 copies of the games, some already assembled in plastic-wrapped boxes, others still in pieces, were trucked. Russ Foster stood amid Anti-Monopoly games in a Mankato landfill in 1977. Anspach had sold some 410,000 copies by 1977, and the company, it seems, wanted to make him pay. The firm won an early round of the litigation when a California federal judge ordered all copies of Anti-Monopoly destroyed. Parker Brothers sued Anspach for trademark infringement. Parker Brothers became part of General Mills in 1968, as leaders of the rapidly diversifying Minnesota company sought "new sources of profit," the Minneapolis Tribune reported at the time.Īnspach received a letter in early 1974 from Parker Brothers, demanding he change his game's name, according to Pilon's book. The company had made a massive worldwide hit out of Monopoly after purchasing its trademark in 1935. "They were excited to be making it it was a big deal then," Taylor said. He remembers visiting the plant and being shown copies of the Anti-Monopoly game. Glen Taylor, a longtime Mankato businessman and owner of the Star Tribune, said he did regular business with Mankato Corporation in the '70s. "I think he came to us looking for a manufacturer," Rottunda said. John Rottunda, who became company president in 1977 after Foster shifted to the board chairman role, recalled that a Wayzata-based sales rep for the game industry made the initial connection between Anspach and Foster. Russ Foster, left, posed with Mankato Corporation workers assembling Anti-Monopoly's sequel, Anti-Monopoly II, in 1983. It was complete with play money, "mailbox cards" and "indictment chips." Like Monopoly, Anti-Monopoly is a square board with spaces around the edges representing conglomerates - oil and gas companies, steel and tire makers, utilities and railroads. Anspach was struck by a realization: "He could create an anti-monopoly game of his own." With help from his family, he set out developing a game that rewarded breaking up monopolies, not building them. "The board game rewarded something in play that hurt people in reality," Anspach thought, according to Pilon's account. But with an oil crisis developing and consumer suffering on the rise, the game's message seemed less fun. Later, in Berkeley in the early 1970s, he played with his wife and sons. Anspach was a German Jew who had immigrated to New York with his family in 1938, according to Mary Pilon's 2015 history of Monopoly, " The Monopolists."Īnspach played Monopoly in Czechoslovakia as a child, Pilon wrote. The Anti-MonopolistĪnti-Monopoly was the creation of Ralph Anspach, who in 1973 was teaching economics at San Francisco State University.
He sought answers from Curious Minnesota, the Star Tribune's reader-powered community reporting project.
"I thought I knew this town well, so I wondered where that could be." "We thought, 'God dang, they destroyed all those games in Mankato?'" Trieschman said. The retired firefighter and lifelong Mankato resident wanted to know the location of the burial site, and who manufactured the games. Reader Mike Trieschman learned of the Anti-Monopoly graveyard in a recent PBS documentary about Monopoly's history. The saga remains a prominent chapter in the history of Monopoly, the most popular modern board game. Parker Brothers, then a division of Golden Valley-based General Mills, obtained a federal court order to have the game buried. Then, much like in Monopoly, the ownership class quashed the competition. Manufactured in Mankato, the game Anti-Monopoly found success in the mid-1970s amid America's rampant inflation and institutional distrust. Somewhere beneath southern Minnesota lie the remnants of about 40,000 board games once created and sold as an antiestablishment alternative to mega-selling Monopoly. Listen and subscribe to our podcast: Via Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher
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