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{{short description|American publisher and game designer}}
{{Wikify|date=May 2007}}
{{other uses}}
{{Essay-like|date=December 2007}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=June 2022}}

{{Infobox person
:''This article is about the board game pioneer. For the baseball player, see [[Milton Bradley (baseball)]].''
| name = Milton Bradley
{{Infobox Person
| name = Milton Bradley
| image = Milton bradley old.jpg
| image_size = 200
| image = Milton bradley portrait.jpg
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1836|11|8}}
| image_size = 200px
| birth_place = [[Vienna, Maine|Vienna]], [[Maine]], U.S.
| caption = Milton Bradley in his old age
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1911|5|30|1836|11|8}}
| birth_date = [[5 November]] [[1836]]
| death_place = [[Springfield, Massachusetts|Springfield]], [[Massachusetts]], U.S.
| birth_place = [[Vienna, Maine]], USA
| occupation = Entrepreneur<br>Board game manufacturer
| death_date = {{death date and age|1911|05|30|1836|11|5}}
| notable_works =
| death_place = [[Springfield, Massachusetts]], USA
| known_for = Founder of the <br>[[Milton Bradley Company]]
| education =
| signature = Signature of Milton Bradley (1836–1911).png
| occupation = Board game manufacturer
| spouse =
| parents =
| children =
}}
}}
'''Milton Bradley''' ([[November 8]], [[1836]] – [[May 30]], [[1911]]) a [[United States|American]] [[board game|game]] pioneer, was credited by many with launching the board game industry in North America with [[Milton Bradley Company]].
'''Milton Bradley''' (November 8, 1836 – May 30, 1911) was an American business magnate, game pioneer and publisher, credited by many with launching the [[board game]] industry, with [[Milton Bradley Company|his eponymous enterprise]], which was purchased by [[Hasbro]] in 1984, and folded in 1998.


==Biography==
A native of [[Vienna, Maine]], in his late teens Bradley chose to pursue the printing trade, including [[lithography]]. He set up the first color lithography shop in the commonwealth of [[Massachusetts]], established in Springfield 1860. Eventually, Bradley moved forward with an idea he had for a board game which he called ''The Checkered Game of Life'', an early version of what would later become [[The Game of Life]].
Born in [[Vienna, Maine|Vienna]], [[Maine]], in 1836, to Lewis and Fannie (née Lyford) Bradley,<ref name=":0" /> Milton Bradley grew up in a [[working class|working-class]] and Christian household.<ref name=thesis>{{cite thesis |url=https://honors.libraries.psu.edu/files/final_submissions/3726 |title=Milton Bradley's ''Game of Life'': Constructing a National Narrative Through Board Game Analysis |first=Haleigh E. |last=Swansen |date=Fall 2016 |degree=BA |publisher=[[Pennsylvania State University]] |pages=6–7}}</ref><ref name=book>{{cite book |title=Who Was Milton Bradley? |first=Kirsten |last=Anderson |date=August 2, 2016 |publisher=[[Penguin Random House]] |author2=Who HQ |others=Illustrated by Tim Foley |isbn=9780448488479}}</ref> The family moved to [[Lowell, Massachusetts|Lowell]], [[Massachusetts]], in 1847. After completing high school in 1854, he found work as a draftsman and patent agent before enrolling at the [[Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences#History|Lawrence Scientific School]] in [[Cambridge, Massachusetts]]. He was unable to finish his studies after moving with his family to [[Hartford, Connecticut]], where he could not find gainful employment.<ref name= ANB /> In 1856, Bradley moved to [[Springfield, Massachusetts]], where he worked as a mechanical draftsman.<ref name=":2" />


In 1859, Bradley went to [[Providence, Rhode Island|Providence]], [[Rhode Island]], to learn [[lithography]]; and, in 1860, he set up the first color lithography shop in [[Springfield, Massachusetts]]. He moved forward with an idea he had for a board game which he called ''The Checkered Game of Life'', an early version of what later became ''[[The Game of Life]]''.<ref name=":0">{{cite book|title=Dictionary of American Biography|date=1936|publisher=Charles Scribner's Sons |location= New York |url= http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/bic1/ReferenceDetailsPage/ReferenceDetailsWindow?failOverType=&query=&prodId=BIC1&windowstate=normal&contentModules=&display-query=&mode=view&displayGroupName=Reference&limiter=&currPage=&disableHighlighting=false&displayGroups=&sortBy=&search_within_results=&p=BIC1&action=e&catId=&activityType=&scanId=&documentId=GALE%7CBT2310017266&source=Bookmark&u=mlin_n_umass&jsid=53b8f179cad5e83185c39ec48ea3b84b|access-date=December 7, 2014|ref=Biography in Context |url-access=subscription}}</ref>
He also had invented the [[paper cutter]]. In 2004, he was posthumously inducted into the [[National Toy Hall of Fame]] along with George Ditomassi of Milton Bradley Co. Through the 20th century, the company he founded dominated the production of American games, with titles like [[Candy Land]], [[Operation (game)|Operation]], and [[Battleship (game)|Battleship]]. The company is now a subsidiary of [[Pawtucket, Rhode Island]]-based [[Hasbro]].


==The Milton Bradley Company==
==Biography==
[[file:Milton bradley in 1860s.jpg|thumb|left|150px|A young Bradley in the 1860s]]
Bradley's ventures into the production of board games began with a large failure in his lithograph business. When he printed and sold an image of the little-known Republican presidential nominee [[Abraham Lincoln]], Bradley initially met with great success.<ref name=":2">{{cite magazine|last1=Lepore|first1=Jill|author-link1=Jill Lepore|title=The Meaning of Life|magazine=The New Yorker|date=21 May 2007|volume=83|issue=13|page=38|url=http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA163737160&v=2.1&it=r&p=AONE&sw=w&asid=4c7a373745d68263f80d1a322ed4e0f4|access-date=7 December 2014 |url-access=subscription}}</ref> However, Lincoln decided to grow his distinctive beard after Bradley's print was published, leading customers to demand their money back because the image was no longer accurate. The prints suddenly became worthless, and Bradley burned his remaining inventory.<ref>{{cite book| first= James J.| last= Shea| title= The Milton Bradley Story | url= https://archive.org/details/miltonbradleysto0000shea| url-access= registration|place= New York| publisher= Newcomen Society in North America| year= 1973| page= [https://archive.org/details/miltonbradleysto0000shea/page/10 10]}}</ref> Looking for a lucrative alternate project, he found inspiration from an imported board game a friend gave him, concluding that he could produce and market a similar game to American consumers. In the winter of 1860, Bradley released ''[[The Checkered Game of Life]]''.


[[File:MiltonBradleyAdvertList1872.jpg|thumb|150px|1872 advertisement for the Milton Bradley Company]]
Born in [[Vienna, Maine]], to craftsman Ottis Bradley and Fannie Lyford on [[November 8]] [[1836]], Milton Bradley attended high school in the industrial mill town of [[Lowell, Massachusetts]]. Upon completing his secondary education, Bradley pursued technical training as a draftsman at the Lawrence Scientific School, but could not obtain sufficient funding to complete the two-year course. After a two-year spell in [[Hartford, Connecticut]] with his parents, Bradley returned to Massachusetts, settling in [[Springfield, Massachusetts]] in 1856. Beginning an association with technological and intellectual innovation that would recur throughout his life, Milton Bradley then began work with the Wason Car-Manufacturing Company, drafting plans for railroad cars. After briefly leaving Wason to pursue independent drafting for patent seekers, Bradley rejoined the company and remained until 1860.
The game proved an instant success. Bradley personally sold his first run of several hundred copies in a two-day visit to New York; by 1861, consumers had bought more than 45,000 copies. ''The Checkered Game of Life'' followed a structure similar to its American and British predecessors, with players spinning a [[teetotum]] to advance to squares representing social virtues and vices, such as "influence" or "poverty", with the former earning a player points and the latter slowing their progress. But even the most seemingly secure positions, like "Fat Office", held dangers &ndash; "Prison", "Ruin", and "Suicide".<ref>{{cite journal| first1= David Wallace| last1= Adams |first2= Victor |last2= Edmonds| title= Making Your Move: The Educational Significance of the American Board Game, 1832 to 1904| journal= History of Education Quarterly| volume= 17| number= 4 |date= Winter 1977| page= 376| doi= 10.2307/367865 | jstor= 367865 | s2cid= 144413366 }}</ref> The first player to accumulate 100 points won the game.
Unsatisfied with his profession, Milton Bradley taught himself lithography and print-making, producing an image of Abraham Lincoln during the 1860 presidential campaign that sold well in the heavily Republican Massachusetts. Lincoln’s decision to grow a beard, and the resulting iconic connection of facial hair to the sixteenth president, immediately rendered Bradley’s lithograph obsolete, and left his fledgling printing business without a marketable image. In search of a lucrative alternative project in which to employ his drafting skills, Bradley found inspiration from an imported board game given to him by a friend. Concluding that he could produce and market a similar game to American consumers, Milton Bradley released [[The Checkered Game of Life]] in the winter of 1860.


[[file:Checkered game of life mb cover.jpg|thumb|left|The original cover of ''The Checkered Game of Life'', the first board game released by MB]]
The game proved an instant success with the public. Bradley personally sold his first run of several hundred copies in one two-day period in New York; consumers purchased a further 40,000 copies during the winter of 1860-1861. The Checkered Game of Life followed a structure similar to its American and British predecessors, with players spinning a [[teetotum]] (a top-like numerical die) to advance to corresponding squares. The squares each represented a social virtue or vice, with the former earning a player points and the latter retarding his progress. The player who first accumulated one hundred points won the game.
While the structure of play in ''The Checkered Game of Life'' differed little from previous board games, Bradley's game embraced a radically different concept of success. Earlier games, such as the popular ''[[Mansion of Happiness]]'' created in [[Puritan]] Massachusetts, focused entirely on promoting moral virtue. Bradley defined success in secular business terms, depicting life as a quest for accomplishment with personal virtues as a means to that end. This complemented America's burgeoning fascination with obtaining wealth, and with "the causal relationship between character and wealth," in the years following the Civil War. The game—and later board games produced by the Milton Bradley Company—also fit the nation's increasing amount of leisure time, leading to great financial success for the company.<ref name= ANB />


From 1860 through the 20th century, the company he founded, [[Milton Bradley Company]], dominated the production of American games, including ''[[The Game of Life]]'', ''[[Easy Money (board game)|Easy Money]]'', ''[[Candy Land]]'', ''[[Operation (game)|Operation]]'', and ''[[Battleship (game)|Battleship]]''. The company was a subsidiary of [[Pawtucket, Rhode Island]]–based firm [[Hasbro]] from acquisition in 1984 to shutdown in 1998. MB merged with [[Parker Brothers]] in 1998 to form Hasbro Games. The two became brands of Hasbro until 2009 when they were retired in favor of the parent company's name; the Milton Bradley name had been in use for 149 years.
While the structure of play used in The Checkered Game of Life differed little from previous board games, Bradley’s game embraced a radically different concept of success. Earlier children’s games, such as the popular [[Mansion of Happiness]] developed in Puritan Massachusetts, were concerned entirely with providing an attractive venue from which to promote moral virtue. Bradley preferred to define success in secular business terms consistent with America’s emerging focus on “the causal relationship between character and wealth.” This approach, which depicted life as a quest for accomplishment in which personal virtues provided a means to an end rather than a point of focus, complemented America’s burgeoning fascination with obtaining wealth in the years following the Civil War.


==Late career==
Though ''The Checkered Game of Life'' and its several successive variations accounted for Milton Bradley's financial success, board games did not constitute his primary focus in life. With his pecuniary future secure, Bradley turned his attention to a series of progressive scientific and educational causes. Having met Edward Wiebe, an early American proponent of the kindergarten movement, in 1869, Bradley began to explore the ideas of the German romantic philosopher [[Friedrich Wilhelm August Froebel]]. Froebel challenged prevalent notions for educating children, which emphasized recitation, rote memorization, and the teaching of factual information from a child’s earliest schooling. Believing that these practices, which attempted to instill an adult mentality in children, ran contrary to both effective teaching and a child’s natural impulses, Froebel suggested a pattern of education that focused on the child’s vantage point. Froebel's theory stressed stimulation of aesthetic and sensory perception, kept lessons brief, presented them in simple terms suitable for a child’s consumption, and incorporated instinctual preferences for play and spontaneity.
Bradley published [[Tract (literature)|tract]]s and [[pamphlet]]s on [[Friedrich Fröbel]]'s [[kindergarten]] system. His company produced two magazines, ''Kindergarten News'' (later ''Kindergarten Review''), and ''Work and Play.'' Neither was profitable, and Bradley's business partners withdrew their support, but Bradley persevered, publishing both magazines until the end of his life. His friend George Tapley bought out the partner's shares so that Bradley could continue manufacturing educational materials.


By the 1890s, the Milton Bradley Company had introduced the first standardized [[watercolor]] sets, and educational games such as ''Bradley's Word Builder'' and ''Bradley's Sentence Builder''. Bradley was also the first to release [[crayon]] packages with standardized colors, a forerunner of the [[Binney & Smith]] company's ''[[Crayola]]'' crayons and ''Artista'' art supplies. Bradley's interest in art education also led him to produce a new [[color wheel]] and publish four books about teaching colors.<ref name=smithsonian>{{cite web |url=https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/nmah_1184432 |title=Color Wheel |work=[[National Museum of American History]] |publisher=[[Smithsonian Institution]] |date=1898 |access-date=June 2, 2024}}</ref>
Enthralled with Froebel's ideas, Milton Bradley made distinct contributions to bringing them to prominence with the American public. Beginning in 1869, Bradley published educational tracts and pamphlets on the virtues of Froebel's kindergarten system. His company produced two magazines on the subject, Kindergarten News (later Kindergarten Review), and Work and Play. Though neither produced a profit, compelling Bradley’s business partners to withdraw their support, Bradley persevered, publishing the magazines until the end of his life.


==Personal life==
Though Milton Bradley owed both his lifetime fame and his perseverance in American memory to The Checkered Game of Life and its successors, his influence and interests extended far beyond entertainment to include popular progressive theories of the Gilded Age.
In 1860, Bradley married Vilona Eaton. They had no children. She died in 1867.<ref name= ANB>{{cite web|last1=Ing|first1=Deborah S.|title=Bradley, Milton|url=http://www.anb.org/articles/10/10-00177.html|website=American National Biography Online| publisher= Oxford University Press|access-date=December 7, 2014 |url-access=subscription}}</ref> In 1869, he married his second wife, Ellen "Nellie" Thayer.<ref name=":0" /> Bradley and Nellie had two daughters.<ref name=book/>{{rp|pages=80-82}}


Milton Bradley died on May 30, 1911, in [[Springfield, Massachusetts]], at age 74.<ref name=":0" /> He was buried in [[Springfield Cemetery (Springfield, Massachusetts)|Springfield Cemetery]] in a family plot alongside his father Lewis (1810–1890), his mother Fanny (1813–1872), and his first wife Vilona. His second wife Nellie was buried there after her death in 1918.
He died on [[May 30]], [[1911]].


In 2004, he was posthumously inducted into the [[Toy Industry Hall of Fame]] along with George Ditomassi of Milton Bradley Company.<ref>{{Cite web|title = About the Toy Industry Hall of Fame|url = http://www.museumofplay.org/press/fact-sheets/about-toy-industry-hall-fame|website = museumofplay.org|access-date = 2016-02-05|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20151222204552/http://www.museumofplay.org/press/fact-sheets/about-toy-industry-hall-fame|archive-date = 2015-12-22|url-status = live}}</ref>
==References==
*{{cite journal
| last =Bradley
| first =Milton
| title =The Color Question Again
| journal =[[Science (journal)|Science]]
| volume =19
| issue =477
| pages =175-176
| date =1892
| url=http://books.google.com/books?id=yIMCAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA1-PA175}}
*{{cite web
| last =Ing
| first =Deborah
| title =Bradley, Milton
| work =American National Biography Online
| publisher =[[Oxford University Press]]
| date =February 2000
| url =http://www.anb.org/articles/10/10-00177.html
| format=Reference Database - ''registration required''
| accessdate =2007-01-31}}


In 2006, Bradley was posthumously inducted into the [[National Inventors Hall of Fame]].<ref>{{Cite news|url= http://www.invent.org/honor/inductees/inductee-detail/?IID=252|title= Inductee Detail|newspaper= NIHF|language= en-US|access-date= 2016-12-07}}{{dead link|date=August 2020|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref>
* Lepore, Jill. "The Meaning of Life: What Milton Bradley Started". ''The New Yorker'', [[21 May]] [[2007]], pp. 38-43..

==Books and patents==

===Books===
* ''Color in the Schoolroom'' (1890)
* ''Color in the Kindergarten'' (1893)
* ''[https://archive.org/details/elementarycolor00bradgoog Elementary Color]'' (1895)
* ''[https://archive.org/details/watercolorsinsch00brad <!-- quote=milton bradley. --> Water Colors in the Schoolroom]'' (1900)
* Bradley published a set of rules to play [[croquet]] in 1866 written by an author using the pseudonym Prof. A Rover.<ref>{{cite book |last1= Rover |first1= A| title= Croquet; Its Principles and Rules: With Explanations and Illustrations for the Lawn and Parlor| year= 1973| publisher= Milton Bradley & Co |location= Springfield, Massachusetts |oclc= 7334661}}</ref>

===Patents and inventions===
*{{ cite patent
| country = US
| number = 53561 A
| status = patent
| title = Social game
| pubdate = 1866-04-03
| inventor = Milton Bradley
| assign1 =
| assign2 =
| class =
}}

*{{ cite patent
| country = US
| number = 416437 A
| status = patent
| title = Drawing Board
| pubdate = 1889-12-03
| inventor = Milton Bradley
| assign1 =
| assign2 =
| class =
}}

*{{ cite patent
| country = US
| number = 537887 A
| status = patent
| title = Color-mixing top
| pubdate = 1895-04-23
| inventor = Milton Bradley
| assign1 =
| assign2 =
| class =
}}

*{{ cite patent
| country = US
| number = 310873 A
| status = patent
| title = Toy spring-gun
| pubdate = 1885-01-20
| inventor = Milton Bradley
| assign1 =
| assign2 =
| class =
}}

*{{ cite patent
| country = US
| number = 492604 A
| status = patent
| title = Color-disk rotating mechanism
| pubdate = 1893-02-28
| inventor = Milton Bradley
| assign1 =
| assign2 =
| class =
}}

*{{ cite patent
| country = US
| number =524160 A
| status = patent
| title = Compasses
| pubdate = 1894-08-07
| inventor = Milton Bradley
| assign1 =
| assign2 =
| class =
}}

*{{ cite patent
| country = US
| number =215205 A
| status = patent
| title = Improvement in paper-cutting machines
| pubdate = 1879-05-13
| inventor = Milton Bradley
| assign1 =
| assign2 =
| class =
}}

*{{ cite patent
| country = US
| number =225457 A
| status = patent
| title = Process of engraving printing-surfaces
| pubdate = 1880-03-16
| inventor = Milton Bradley
| assign1 =
| assign2 =
| class =
}}

*{{ cite patent
| country = US
| number =418437 A
| status = patent
| title = Kindergarten-table
| pubdate = 1889-12-31
| inventor = Milton Bradley
| assign1 =
| assign2 =
| class =
}}
* Invented the Myriopticon panorama viewer depicting scenes in the [[American Civil War]].<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Marten|first1=James|title=History in a Box: Milton Bradley's Myriopticon|journal=The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth|date=Winter 2009|volume=2|issue=1|pages=3–7|url=http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/journal_of_the_history_of_childhood_and_youth/v002/2.1.marten.pdf|access-date=December 7, 2014|doi=10.1353/hcy.0.0042|s2cid=144440849|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141208150302/http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=%2Fjournals%2Fjournal_of_the_history_of_childhood_and_youth%2Fv002%2F2.1.marten.pdf|archive-date=December 8, 2014|url-status=live}}</ref>

==In popular culture==
The story of Milton Bradley and ''The Checkered Game of Life'' is featured as one of the segments in Season 3, Episode 6 of the [[Comedy Central]] show ''[[Drunk History]]''.

==References==
{{Reflist}}


==External links==
==External links==
{{commons cat}}
*[http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=3076 Grave Photo and Bio]
{{Library resources box
|onlinebooks=yes
|by=yes
|viaf=66353555
|label=Milton Bradley}}
* [http://www.life.com/gallery/60931/milton-bradley-a-playful-legacy#index/0 Milton Bradley: A Playful Legacy] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110828150330/http://www.life.com/gallery/60931/milton-bradley-a-playful-legacy#index/0 |date=August 28, 2011 }} – slideshow by ''[[Life magazine]]''
* {{Gutenberg author|id=40885|name=Milton Bradley}}
* {{Internet Archive author|sname=Milton Bradley|sopt=t}}
* {{Find a Grave|3076}}
* {{Librivox author |id=14676}}


{{Milton Bradley}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bradley, Milton}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bradley, Milton}}

[[Category:1836 births]]
[[Category:1836 births]]
[[Category:1911 deaths]]
[[Category:1911 deaths]]
[[Category:Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences alumni]]
[[Category:American inventors]]
[[Category:American game designers]]
[[Category:19th-century American inventors]]
[[Category:People from Vienna, Maine]]
[[Category:Artists from Springfield, Massachusetts]]
[[Category:Businesspeople from Maine]]
[[Category:Businesspeople from Springfield, Massachusetts]]
[[Category:American board game designers]]
[[Category:People from Lowell, Massachusetts]]
[[Category:19th-century American businesspeople]]
[[Category:Milton Bradley Company]]

Latest revision as of 09:29, 20 November 2024

For other uses, see Milton Bradley (disambiguation).

Milton Bradley
Born(1836-11-08)November 8, 1836
Vienna, Maine, U.S.
DiedMay 30, 1911(1911-05-30) (aged 74)
Springfield, Massachusetts, U.S.
Occupation(s)Entrepreneur
Board game manufacturer
Known forFounder of the
Milton Bradley Company
Signature

Milton Bradley (November 8, 1836 – May 30, 1911) was an American business magnate, game pioneer and publisher, credited by many with launching the board game industry, with his eponymous enterprise, which was purchased by Hasbro in 1984, and folded in 1998.

Biography

[edit]

Born in Vienna, Maine, in 1836, to Lewis and Fannie (née Lyford) Bradley,[1] Milton Bradley grew up in a working-class and Christian household.[2][3] The family moved to Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1847. After completing high school in 1854, he found work as a draftsman and patent agent before enrolling at the Lawrence Scientific School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was unable to finish his studies after moving with his family to Hartford, Connecticut, where he could not find gainful employment.[4] In 1856, Bradley moved to Springfield, Massachusetts, where he worked as a mechanical draftsman.[5]

In 1859, Bradley went to Providence, Rhode Island, to learn lithography; and, in 1860, he set up the first color lithography shop in Springfield, Massachusetts. He moved forward with an idea he had for a board game which he called The Checkered Game of Life, an early version of what later became The Game of Life.[1]

The Milton Bradley Company

[edit]
A young Bradley in the 1860s

Bradley's ventures into the production of board games began with a large failure in his lithograph business. When he printed and sold an image of the little-known Republican presidential nominee Abraham Lincoln, Bradley initially met with great success.[5] However, Lincoln decided to grow his distinctive beard after Bradley's print was published, leading customers to demand their money back because the image was no longer accurate. The prints suddenly became worthless, and Bradley burned his remaining inventory.[6] Looking for a lucrative alternate project, he found inspiration from an imported board game a friend gave him, concluding that he could produce and market a similar game to American consumers. In the winter of 1860, Bradley released The Checkered Game of Life.

1872 advertisement for the Milton Bradley Company

The game proved an instant success. Bradley personally sold his first run of several hundred copies in a two-day visit to New York; by 1861, consumers had bought more than 45,000 copies. The Checkered Game of Life followed a structure similar to its American and British predecessors, with players spinning a teetotum to advance to squares representing social virtues and vices, such as "influence" or "poverty", with the former earning a player points and the latter slowing their progress. But even the most seemingly secure positions, like "Fat Office", held dangers – "Prison", "Ruin", and "Suicide".[7] The first player to accumulate 100 points won the game.

The original cover of The Checkered Game of Life, the first board game released by MB

While the structure of play in The Checkered Game of Life differed little from previous board games, Bradley's game embraced a radically different concept of success. Earlier games, such as the popular Mansion of Happiness created in Puritan Massachusetts, focused entirely on promoting moral virtue. Bradley defined success in secular business terms, depicting life as a quest for accomplishment with personal virtues as a means to that end. This complemented America's burgeoning fascination with obtaining wealth, and with "the causal relationship between character and wealth," in the years following the Civil War. The game—and later board games produced by the Milton Bradley Company—also fit the nation's increasing amount of leisure time, leading to great financial success for the company.[4]

From 1860 through the 20th century, the company he founded, Milton Bradley Company, dominated the production of American games, including The Game of Life, Easy Money, Candy Land, Operation, and Battleship. The company was a subsidiary of Pawtucket, Rhode Island–based firm Hasbro from acquisition in 1984 to shutdown in 1998. MB merged with Parker Brothers in 1998 to form Hasbro Games. The two became brands of Hasbro until 2009 when they were retired in favor of the parent company's name; the Milton Bradley name had been in use for 149 years.

Late career

[edit]

Bradley published tracts and pamphlets on Friedrich Fröbel's kindergarten system. His company produced two magazines, Kindergarten News (later Kindergarten Review), and Work and Play. Neither was profitable, and Bradley's business partners withdrew their support, but Bradley persevered, publishing both magazines until the end of his life. His friend George Tapley bought out the partner's shares so that Bradley could continue manufacturing educational materials.

By the 1890s, the Milton Bradley Company had introduced the first standardized watercolor sets, and educational games such as Bradley's Word Builder and Bradley's Sentence Builder. Bradley was also the first to release crayon packages with standardized colors, a forerunner of the Binney & Smith company's Crayola crayons and Artista art supplies. Bradley's interest in art education also led him to produce a new color wheel and publish four books about teaching colors.[8]

Personal life

[edit]

In 1860, Bradley married Vilona Eaton. They had no children. She died in 1867.[4] In 1869, he married his second wife, Ellen "Nellie" Thayer.[1] Bradley and Nellie had two daughters.[3]: 80–82 

Milton Bradley died on May 30, 1911, in Springfield, Massachusetts, at age 74.[1] He was buried in Springfield Cemetery in a family plot alongside his father Lewis (1810–1890), his mother Fanny (1813–1872), and his first wife Vilona. His second wife Nellie was buried there after her death in 1918.

In 2004, he was posthumously inducted into the Toy Industry Hall of Fame along with George Ditomassi of Milton Bradley Company.[9]

In 2006, Bradley was posthumously inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.[10]

Books and patents

[edit]

Books

[edit]

Patents and inventions

[edit]
  • A US patent 53561 A, Milton Bradley, "Social game", published 1866-04-03 
  • A US patent 215205 A, Milton Bradley, "Improvement in paper-cutting machines", published 1879-05-13 
  • A US patent 225457 A, Milton Bradley, "Process of engraving printing-surfaces", published 1880-03-16 
[edit]

The story of Milton Bradley and The Checkered Game of Life is featured as one of the segments in Season 3, Episode 6 of the Comedy Central show Drunk History.

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b c d Dictionary of American Biography. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1936. Retrieved December 7, 2014.
  2. ^ Swansen, Haleigh E. (Fall 2016). Milton Bradley's Game of Life: Constructing a National Narrative Through Board Game Analysis (BA thesis). Pennsylvania State University. pp. 6–7.
  3. ^ a b Anderson, Kirsten; Who HQ (August 2, 2016). Who Was Milton Bradley?. Illustrated by Tim Foley. Penguin Random House. ISBN 9780448488479.
  4. ^ a b c Ing, Deborah S. "Bradley, Milton". American National Biography Online. Oxford University Press. Retrieved December 7, 2014.
  5. ^ a b Lepore, Jill (May 21, 2007). "The Meaning of Life". The New Yorker. Vol. 83, no. 13. p. 38. Retrieved December 7, 2014.
  6. ^ Shea, James J. (1973). The Milton Bradley Story. New York: Newcomen Society in North America. p. 10.
  7. ^ Adams, David Wallace; Edmonds, Victor (Winter 1977). "Making Your Move: The Educational Significance of the American Board Game, 1832 to 1904". History of Education Quarterly. 17 (4): 376. doi:10.2307/367865. JSTOR 367865. S2CID 144413366.
  8. ^ "Color Wheel". National Museum of American History. Smithsonian Institution. 1898. Retrieved June 2, 2024.
  9. ^ "About the Toy Industry Hall of Fame". museumofplay.org. Archived from the original on December 22, 2015. Retrieved February 5, 2016.
  10. ^ "Inductee Detail". NIHF. Retrieved December 7, 2016.[dead link‍]
  11. ^ Rover, A (1973). Croquet; Its Principles and Rules: With Explanations and Illustrations for the Lawn and Parlor. Springfield, Massachusetts: Milton Bradley & Co. OCLC 7334661.
  12. ^ Marten, James (Winter 2009). "History in a Box: Milton Bradley's Myriopticon" (PDF). The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth. 2 (1): 3–7. doi:10.1353/hcy.0.0042. S2CID 144440849. Archived (PDF) from the original on December 8, 2014. Retrieved December 7, 2014.
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