AncientPages.com –\u00a0<\/strong>In 2023 alone, the board game industry topped US$16.8 billion and is projected to reach $40.1 billion by 2032.<\/p>\n Classics like \u201cScrabble\u201d are being refreshed and transformed, while newer inventions such as \u201cPandemic\u201d and \u201cWingspan\u201d have garnered millions of devotees.<\/p>\n The title and printer\u2019s address for the game. The copyright notice of July 12, 1822, appears in small type at the bottom. Library of Congress<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n This growing cardboard empire was on my mind when I visited the American Antiquarian Society in August 2023 to research its collection of early games.<\/p>\n As I sat in that archive, which houses such treasures as the 1640 Bay Psalm Book, the first book printed in British America, I beheld another first in American printing: a board game called \u201cThe Travellers\u2019 Tour Through the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n This forgotten game, printed the year after Missouri became a state, has a lot to say about America\u2019s nascent board game industry, as well as how a young country saw itself.<\/p>\n Produced by the New York cartography firm of F. & R. Lockwood, \u201cThe Travellers\u2019 Tour Through the United States\u201d was an imitation of earlier European geography games, a genre of educational game. Geography games generally used a map for a board, and the rules involved players reciting geographic facts as they race toward the finish.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Travellers\u2019 Tour\u201d first appeared in 1822, making it the earliest known board game printed in the U.S.<\/p>\n But for almost a century another game held that honor.<\/p>\n In 1894, the game manufacturer Parker Brothers acquired the rights to \u201cThe Mansion of Happiness,\u201d an English game first produced in the U.S. in 1843. In its promotional materials, the company declared it \u201cThe first board game ever published in America.\u201d<\/p>\n That distinction ended in 1991 when a game collector found the copy of \u201cThe Travellers\u2019 Tour\u201d in the archives of the American Antiquarian Society.<\/p>\n By 1822 the American market for board games was already becoming established, and middle- and upper-class parents would buy games for their families to enjoy around the parlor table.<\/p>\n At that time, New Year\u2019s \u2013 not Christmas \u2013 was the holiday for gift giving. Many booksellers, who earned money from the sale of books, playing cards and other paper goods throughout the year, would sell special wares to give as presents.<\/p>\n These items included holiday-themed books, puzzles \u2013 then called \u201cdissected maps\u201d \u2013 and paper dolls, as well as games imported from England such as \u201cThe New Game of Human Life\u201d and \u201cThe Royal And Entertaining Game of Goose.\u201d<\/p>\n Since \u201cThe Travellers\u2019 Tour\u201d was the first board game to employ a map of the U.S., it might have been an especially interesting gift to American consumers.<\/p>\n It\u2019s difficult, however, to gauge just how popular \u201cThe Travellers\u2019 Tour\u201d was in its time. No sales records are known to exist, and since so few copies remain, it likely wasn\u2019t a big seller.<\/p>\n A global database of library holdings shows only five copies of \u201cThe Travellers\u2019 Tour\u201d in institutions around the U.S. And while a handful of additional copies are housed in museums and private archives, the game is certainly a rarity.<\/p>\n Announcing itself as a \u201cpleasing and instructive pastime,\u201d \u201cThe Travellers\u2019 Tour\u201d consists of a hand-colored map of the then-24 states and a numbered list of 139 towns and cities, ranging from New York City to New Madrid, Missouri. Beside each number is the name and description of the corresponding town.<\/p>\n The \u2018stop\u2019 at Bennington, Vt., highlights the town\u2019s Revolutionary War history, while Philadelphia\u2019s entry points to the city\u2019s educational institutions. Library of Congress<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n Using a variant spelling for the device, the instructions stipulate the game should be \u201cperformed with a Tetotum.\u201d Small top-like devices with numbers around their sides called teetotums functioned as alternatives to dice, which were associated with immoral games of chance.<\/p>\n Once spun, the teetotum lands with a random side up, revealing a number. The player looks ahead that number of spaces on the map.<\/p>\n If they can recite from memory the name of the town or city, they move their token, or traveler, to that space. Whoever gets to New Orleans first, wins.<\/p>\n \u2018New-Orleans\u2019 is the game\u2019s \u2018finish line.\u2019<\/span>\u00a0Library of Congress<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n Though not necessary to play \u201cThe Travellers\u2019 Tour,\u201d the descriptions provided for each location tell historians a lot about America\u2019s national aspirations.<\/p>\n These accounts coalesce into a flattering portrait of the nation\u2019s agricultural, commercial, historical and cultural character.<\/p>\n Promoting the value of education, the game highlights institutions of learning. For example, Philadelphia\u2019s \u201cliterary and benevolent institutions are numerous and respectable.\u201d Providence boasts \u201cBrown University, a respectable literary institution.\u201d And Boston\u2019s \u201ccitizens \u2026 are enterprising and liberal in the support of religious and literary institutions.\u201d<\/p>\n As the game pieces meander toward New Orleans, players learn about Richmond\u2019s \u201cfertile backcountry\u201d and about the \u201cpolished manners and unaffected hospitality\u201d of the citizens of Charleston. Savannah \u201ccontains many splendid edifices\u201d and Columbia\u2019s \u201cSouth Carolina College bids fair to be a valuable institution.\u201d<\/p>\n Teetotums were used in an era when dice were associated with vice.<\/span>\u00a0Museum Rotterdam\/Wikimedia Commons,\u00a0CC BY-SA<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n Absent from any corresponding descriptions, however, is any mention of what John C. Calhoun called America\u2019s \u201cpeculiar institution\u201d of slavery and its role in the fabric of the nation.<\/p>\n And while four entries briefly reference American Indians, no mention is made of the ongoing dispossession and genocide of millions of Indigenous people.<\/p>\n Though it promotes an American identity based on a sanitized version of the nation\u2019s economic might and intellectual rigor, \u201cThe Travellers\u2019 Tour\u201d nonetheless represents an important step toward what has become a burgeoning American board game industry.<\/p>\n Two centuries later, board game culture has matured to the point that new titles such as \u201cFreedom: The Underground Railroad\u201d and \u201cVotes for Women\u201d push the genre to new heights, using the joy of play to teach the history of the era that spawned America\u2019s first board game.<\/p>\n Provided by\u00a0The <\/strong>Conversation<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n This article is republished from\u00a0The Conversation\u00a0under a Creative Commons license. Read\u00a0the\u00a0original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n![\"What](\"https:\/\/www.ancientpages.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/boadgamejune6.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nAn archival find<\/h2>\n
A new game for the new year<\/h2>\n
Teetotums and travelers<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\nAn idealized portrait of a young country<\/h2>\n
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