Milton Bradley (November 8, 1836 – May 30, 1911), an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
game pioneer, was credited by many with launching the
board gameA board game is a game in which counters or pieces that are placed on, removed from, or moved across a "board"...
industry in North America with
Milton Bradley CompanyThe Milton Bradley Company is an American game company established by Milton Bradley in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1860. In 1920, it absorbed the game production of McLoughlin Brothers, formerly the largest game manufacturer in the United States and in 1987 it purchased Selchow and Righter,...
.
A native of
Vienna, MaineVienna is a town in Kennebec County, Maine, United States. The population was 527 at the 2000 census.-Geography:According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 25.4 square miles , of which, 24.2 square miles of it is land and 1.2 square miles of it is...
, in his late teens Bradley chose to pursue the printing trade, including
lithographyLithography is a method for printing using a stone or a metal plate with a completely smooth surface...
. He set up the first color lithography shop in the commonwealth of
MassachusettsThe Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. Most of its population of...
, established in Springfield in 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 LifeThe Game of Life, also known simply as LIFE, is a board game originally created in 1860 by Milton Bradley, as The Checkered Game of Life. The game simulates a person's travels through his or her life, from high school graduation to retirement, with jobs, marriages and children along the way...
.
He also invented the
paper cutterA paper cutter is a tool often found in offices and classrooms, designed to cut a large set of paper at once with a perfectly straight edge.-History:...
.
Milton Bradley (November 8, 1836 – May 30, 1911), an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
game pioneer, was credited by many with launching the
board gameA board game is a game in which counters or pieces that are placed on, removed from, or moved across a "board"...
industry in North America with
Milton Bradley CompanyThe Milton Bradley Company is an American game company established by Milton Bradley in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1860. In 1920, it absorbed the game production of McLoughlin Brothers, formerly the largest game manufacturer in the United States and in 1987 it purchased Selchow and Righter,...
.
A native of
Vienna, MaineVienna is a town in Kennebec County, Maine, United States. The population was 527 at the 2000 census.-Geography:According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 25.4 square miles , of which, 24.2 square miles of it is land and 1.2 square miles of it is...
, in his late teens Bradley chose to pursue the printing trade, including
lithographyLithography is a method for printing using a stone or a metal plate with a completely smooth surface...
. He set up the first color lithography shop in the commonwealth of
MassachusettsThe Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. Most of its population of...
, established in Springfield in 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 LifeThe Game of Life, also known simply as LIFE, is a board game originally created in 1860 by Milton Bradley, as The Checkered Game of Life. The game simulates a person's travels through his or her life, from high school graduation to retirement, with jobs, marriages and children along the way...
.
He also invented the
paper cutterA paper cutter is a tool often found in offices and classrooms, designed to cut a large set of paper at once with a perfectly straight edge.-History:...
. In 2004, he was posthumously inducted into the
National Toy Hall of FameThe National Toy Hall of Fame is an American hall of fame that recognizes the contributions of toys and games that have sustained their popularity for many years...
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 Candyland,
OperationOperation is a battery-operated game of physical skill that tests players' hand-eye co-ordination. Made by Milton Bradley, it has been in production since 1965, the year in which the game was invented by John Spinello....
, and
BattleshipThe game Battleship is a guessing game played by two people. It is known throughout the world as a pencil and paper game and predates World War I in this form...
. The company is now a subsidiary of
Pawtucket, Rhode IslandPawtucket is a city in Providence County, Rhode Island, United States. The population was 72,958 at the 2000 census. It is the fourth largest city in the state.-History:Pawtucket was the birthplace of the American Industrial Revolution...
-based
HasbroHasbro is a U.S.-based, multinational toy and boardgame company. It is one of the largest toy makers in the world. The corporate headquarters is located in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, United States. The majority of its products, however, are manufactured overseas.-History:In 1923, two brothers—Henry...
.
Early years
Born in
Vienna, MaineVienna is a town in Kennebec County, Maine, United States. The population was 527 at the 2000 census.-Geography:According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 25.4 square miles , of which, 24.2 square miles of it is land and 1.2 square miles of it is...
, to craftsman Ottis Bradley and Fannie Lyford on November 8 1836, Milton Bradley attended high school in the industrial mill town of
Lowell, MassachusettsLowell is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, USA. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 105,167. It is the fifth largest city in the state...
. 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, ConnecticutHartford is the capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located in Hartford County on the Connecticut River, north of the center of the state, south of Springfield, Massachusetts. Its 2006 population of 124,512 ranks Hartford as the state's second-largest city, after Bridgeport. New...
with his parents, Bradley returned to Massachusetts, settling in
Springfield, MassachusettsSpringfield is the largest city on the Connecticut River and the county seat of Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States.In the 2000 census, the city population was 154,082. It is the third largest city in Massachusetts and fourth largest in New England...
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.
Unsatisfied with his profession, 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.
(side note: the Vienna Maine Historical Society has purchased the birth place of Milton Bradley, and is in the process of relocating to the site, and also plans on opening a small museum there)
The Checkered Game of Life
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.
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; by 1861, consumers had bought over 45,000 copies.
The Checkered Game of Life followed a structure similar to its American and British predecessors, with players spinning a
teetotumA teetotum is a form of gambling top. It has a polygonal body marked with letters or numbers, which indicate the result of each spin. In its earliest form the body was square , marked on the four sides by the letters A indicating that the player takes one from the pool, D A teetotum (T-Totum) is...
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 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.
Final years
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 Fröbel. Fröbel 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, Fröbel suggested a pattern of education that focused on the child’s vantage point. Fröbel'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.
Enthralled with Fröbel'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 Fröbel'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.
Bradley married twice in his lifetime, first to Villona Eaton in 1860. They had no children together. He then married again to Ellen Thayer in 1869. Bradley and Ms. Thayer had two daughters together; Alice L Bradley (abt 1881) and Florence L Bradley (abt 1875). He died on May 30, 1911 in Springfield.
External links
- Gravesite at Find A Grave
Find A Grave is a website providing access and input to an online database of cemetery records.-History:According to the founder, Salt Lake City resident Jim Tipton, the website was developed in 1995 to address the lack of any existing site that catered to his hobby of visiting the graves of...