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Read the passage on the left. Using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage, answer the
questions on the right.

Board Games

How it all Began

The first documented board game in America, A Traveler's Tour Through the United States, appeared in
1822. Demand for this new form of pastime was limited, and it wasn't until W. & S.B. Ives successfully
marketed the Mansion of Happiness in 1843 that production began to pick up. The McLoughlin Brothers, one
of the most successful board game producers of the 19th century, started its business in 1858.

Strict Victorian mores guided early board game producers. The games were viewed as educational tools,
intended to teach children lessons in history, geography, and good moral conduct. Dice were frowned upon,
owing to an early Puritan belief that the tiny cubes were "instruments of the Devil". As the century drew to a
close, the rules governing board game design eased and inventors were free to create games that were more
entertaining and less moralistic, including examples based on baseball, yachting, and horse racing.
As the middle class continued to expand, the desire for new leisure activities spurred the board game
industry. W. & S.B. Ives, though it had been one of the first American companies to manufacture games, soon
faded from the scene. In its place, four firms rose to dominance: the McLoughlin Bros., known for brightcolored, lithographed boxes and game boards; Milton Bradley, the first firm to manufacture compact game
boards for Civil War soldiers; Parker Brothers, started in 1888 after George Parker bought the rights to the W.
& S.B. Ives company's games; and Selchow and Righter, the firm that obtained the U.S. rights to Parcheesi in
1874.
By 1900, dozens of companies were producing board games for distribution across the United States.
Newspaper publishers even printed full-page game boards in their Sunday papers from time to time. New
trends appeared, such as games involving skill and strategy that targeted adult audiences. While the public
benefited from the competitive pricing and the wider selection of games that resulted from the increase in
production, the colorful lithography that had been the norm during the 19th century fell victim to cost-cutting
measures. As the 20th century progressed, game boards became smaller, block letters replaced elaborate
lithography and plastic supplanted wood and metal as the material of choice for game pieces.
Portrait of an Era
"These were more than just games," says Lee Dennis, one of the foremost game collectors in America and a
frequent lecturer on the subject, "they were boxes of history." Advancements in transportation, Presidential
elections and military conquests were just some of the events that inspired new board games. Drawing on the
influences around them, designers of the '30s and '40s developed themes that reflected the times in which they
lived.
Characters from the Sunday comics soon appeared on board games like the Dick Tracy Detective Game
(Whitman Pub.), Oh, Blondie (Whitman Pub.), and the Little Orphan Annie Game (Milton Bradley). Radio
serials were another popular pastime in America's pretelevision days. Eddie Cantor's Tell It to the Judge
(Parker Bros.) and Fibber McGee and the Wistful Vista Mystery Game (Milton Bradley) were two examples
translated onto game boards.
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Educational games held their appeal and were produced in large numbers. The 1930s Game of Voyage
Around the World (Milton Bradley) came on the heels of the late-1920s Flight to Paris (Milton Bradley) and
the Lindy Flying Game (Parker Bros.), inspired by Charles Lindbergh's historic 1927 flight. Other
educational games from the 1930s and '40s included Admiral Byrd's South Pole Game (Parker Bros.) and Go
to the Head of the Class (Milton Bradley), a precursor of sorts to today's Trivial Pursuit (Parker Bros.).
Game production rose to new heights late in the 1930s and then slowed during the Second World War, as
paper, metal, and other materials were rationed and the nation turned to wartime production. Some games of
this era came equipped with plaster of Paris pieces and an apologetic note from the manufacturer explaining
the need to ration metal as part of the war effort. The late 1940s welcomed the baby boomers and witnessed
the rise of the cult of domesticity. Games like Let's Furnish a House for All the Family (Parker Bros.)
reflected these cultural phenomena as well.
By the early 1950s, television had entered the American home. Fictional characters and celebrities from this
new medium would find their way onto board games in the decades that followed, including Howdy Doody
and Davy Crockett in the 1950s, Batman and the Addams Family in the 1960s, and the Partridge Family and
Charlie's Angels in the 1970s. Interest in these later games has been growing among young collectors during
recent years.
Bruce E. Johnson, Country Living
1. Which game company was established in 1858?

2. What game pieces were regarded as extremely immoral before the end of the 19th century?

3. Who did Milton Bradley produce miniaturised games for?

4. What production technique was dropped at the turn of the last century to make games more affordable?

5. What aspect of the late 1940s lifestyle was reflected in the games of that period?

6. Give the name of ONE real person who inspired board game designers in the first half of the 20th
century.

List FOUR materials which have been used to make game pieces.
7.
8.
9.
10.
Questions 1-10 - Short answer questions
Do not spend too much time on this exercise. The questions focus on very specific pieces of information.
Analyse the questions first, looking for key words, and then skim through the passage quickly to find the
information. You do not need to read the whole text in detail. Remember, you should use a maximum of three
words for each answer and these must be taken from the reading passage.
Questions 7-10
What kind of materials do you think are used to manufacture board games? You will have to go back to the
beginning of the passage and scan the whole text to find these. Three of the answers can be found close
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together, but one is on its own in a later part of the text. And remember - you are looking for materials used to
make game pieces, not other parts of board games.
Copyright 1993 - 2012 Clarity Language Consultants Ltd. All rights reserved.

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