[On December 1, 1948, a Connecticut inventor named James Brunot copyrighted a new board game called Scrabble. Like many great games Scrabble has endured and grown ever since, so for the 75th anniversary of that pivotal moment I’ve AmericanStudied it and a handful of other board games. Leading up to this crowd-sourced post on those and other great games—add your thoughts in comments!]
Larry
Rosenwald follows up Monday’s post on Scrabble, writing, “Not part of what you'll cover, but it's always puzzled me
that I'm so bad at Scrabble - I mean, I'm good with words in lots of ways, but
winning at Scrabble requires (and cultivates) very specific skills, which I
don't have.”
Betsy Cazden adds, “I had no idea
Scrabble was a brand new thing during my childhood! We played it a lot.”
Ashlee
Rhodes follows up Tuesday’s post on Monopoly, highlighting this
podcast episode on the game’s origins.
Other
BoardGameStudying takes:
Katherine N. Yngve
highlights, “Settlers of Catan,
maybe from a post-colonial perspective?” On a different note, she adds, “I
think I learned from playing the board game
1776 that defeating the British is hard. How does the
USA event exist?????”
Paul T. Miller goes with Masterpiece,
“a game that ostensibly helps one learn about
art but is really an exercise in unbridled capitalism with profiles of uber
wealthy and social dilettantes acquiring paintings the rest of everyone
couldn't imagine even traveling to see in a museum. the game has million dollar
bills!”
And Dr. Captain Abraham Tweets that “card and
board games that are all about feelings and interpersonal communication capture
America in the early 1970s perfectly.”
Next
series starts Monday,
Ben
PS. What
do you think? Other games you’d highlight?
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