Over the last 30 years, the board game industry has evolved to produce some of the most beloved modern board games all over the world. According to data from Board Game Geek, the top 10 board games based on the number of people who own them place Catan at the top, with some other popular titles such as Pandemic, Carcassonne, Codenames, and Wingspan populating the list.
As much as board game culture has gained more interest and popularity over the years, it did not start out that way in the US. According to this short history on American board and card games, there was a time when playing cards had been banned by law.
In 1656, it became illegal in Plymouth Colony to play cards and dice, even to the point that people could get publicly whipped if they were caught for a second time. However, as time passed, playing board and card games gradually became more acceptable in society.
Although playing board and card games had been allowed, the Stamp Act of 1765 taxed American colonists one shilling for each pack of playing cards and 10 shillings for each pair of dice. Then, at some point, the board game, "The Mansion of Happiness", was published by William and Stephen B. Ives of Massachussetts, which had been considered the very first published board game in America for almost a century, until a game collector discovered a copy of "The Travellers' Tour" in 1991.
"The Travellers' Tour" was published by F. & R. Lockwood in 1822, whose aim was to provide players with a fun way of learning US geography by taking a tour through the then-24 states and the 139 towns and cities within them. It also includes a numbered list with written descriptions for each town.
Apart from teaching players US geography, it also tested them on their knowledge of the different cities and towns. Each player has a traveler placed on a space on the map, and they roll a dice variant called a teetotum to see how many spaces on the map they will go. If the player knows the name of the city, then they move their traveler to that space. The first to get to New Orleans wins.
Despite having no records or sales data on "The Travellers' Tour", the fact that only five copies exist today may suggest that the board game wasn't as popular back then. Still, it's a wonderful piece of board game history in America which shows us that there had been a burgeoning interest in board games which began two centuries ago.
(Image credit: US Library of Congress/Public Domain)