Long before there were home projectors and televisions for entertainment, there was the Magic Lantern. Around since the late 1700s but not gaining popularity in the United States and England until the 1880s, it was an image projector which portrayed images painted on glass slides. The less expensive Magic Lanterns, such as the one shown in the first image below, could be purchased for home entertainment and showed one glass slide at a time, while the more expensive kinds, as shown in the fourth image below, were often purchased for public showings which consisted of multiple slides overlapping one another. In the case of multiple slides, one slide would contain a stationary background image while another image on a different slide behind the stationary slide would be manually manipulated, causing the effect of a moving picture.
A candle would be used inside early and less expensive models of Magic Lanterns in order to illuminate and project images from behind the glass slides. Later, more expensive models could be plugged in, using a lightbulb to produce a more impressive projection of images.
To see actual images projected by a multiple slide Magic Lantern, click the YouTube link below. This short video is in French, but the examples shown are excellent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3sp4nMD2vs
The Magic Lantern’s popularity began dwindling by the early 20th century and by the 1910s, interest in this device, and sales, had come to an end.
This 1890s advertisement for the Companion Electro-Magnetic Battery doesn’t just state it is useful for medical purposes, but also for entertainment, as depicted below by children holding hands while running electrical currents through themselves.
This adult-themed kissing game, called “Wooden Face”, was featured in an 1854 parlor games book. A “leader” would line up players as follows, the players having their eyes closed the entire duration of the game. Let’s say a male was placed with his back toward a wall or door, of course not knowing the wall/door was behind him. A female would then be placed face-to-face in front of that male. Another male would be placed back-to-back with that female. Then another female would be placed face-to-face with that male followed by another male placed back-to-back with that female. This pattern would continue until all players were lined up as such so that every person had someone of the opposite gender to kiss behind them, except the one whose back was to the wall/door. At the leader’s signal, all players (with eyes still closed) were to turn around and kiss the person who was now in front of them, leaving that one person to kiss the wall/door, making him/her “Wooden Face”.
The image below from the 1854 parlor games book is not accurate, as the woman should be between the two men, but you get the idea.
This photograph from the Princeton University Archive, dated January 12, 1893, pictures sophomores posing after the school’s annual Freshman-Sophomore snowball fight. Some of the freshmen had packed rocks in the snowballs.
The very first cereal prize was offered by Kellogg’s in 1909, in which a child’s booklet titled Funny Jungleland Moving-Pictures was offered in-store with the purchase of two boxes of Corn Flakes. This was the first time a cereal was marketed toward children.
The booklet was made up of six flaps on each page. Turning the flaps would swap animal body parts, creating bizarre character appearances.
Later in 1909, the booklet was no longer offered in-store but rather only through premium mail-in offers at the cost of 10 cents.
Upon its release in the Spring of 1890, the Edison Phonograph Doll was advertised as “the greatest wonder of the age”. The doll, measuring 22 inches tall, contained a miniature phonograph which, when cranked with a handle protruding from the doll’s back, would play a wax cylinder containing one of a number of available nursery rhymes. The nursery rhymes were recorded by young women at Edison’s New Jersey studio.
Thomas Edison was known for many successful inventions. However, this doll was not one of them. It was only sold for a few months due to wax cylinders easily breaking during shipment, not to mention the number of children who found the doll terrifying. You can hear eight of these original Edison Phonograph Doll recordings at the link below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwBctiGgjp0
The first board game sold in the United States was “The Mansion of Happiness” in 1843. As religion and morality were prominent in everyday life at the time, this board game revolved around that subject matter.
To reach the Mansion of Happiness, the player spins a teetotum (4-sided top) and races around a 67-space spiral track depicting various virtues and vices.
Instructions printed upon spaces depicting virtues move the player closer to the Mansion of Happiness while spaces depicting vices send the player back to the pillory, the House of Correction or prison, and thus further from the Mansion of Happiness. Sabbath-breakers are sent to the whipping post. The vice of Pride sends a player back to Humility, and the vice of Idleness to Poverty. The game’s rules noted:
“WHOEVER possesses PIETY, HONESTY, TEMPERANCE, GRATITUDE, PRUDENCE, TRUTH, CHASTITY, SINCERITY…is entitled to Advance six numbers toward the Mansion of Happiness. WHOEVER gets into a PASSION must be taken to the water and have a ducking to cool him… WHOEVER posses[ses] AUDACITY, CRUELTY, IMMODESTY, or INGRATITUDE, must return to his former situation till his turn comes to spin again, and not even think of HAPPINESS, much less partake of it.”
One of the most popular toys/outdoor childrens’ games of the mid to late 19th century was Hoop and Stick, also known as Hoop Trundling. How was it played? A hoop was pushed with a stick, the child running beside the rolling hoop. If played alone, the object of the game was to keep the hoop rolling with the stick for as long as possible. If played with other children, races would occur. It was mostly a game played by preteen boys, but girls participated as well. Boys’ hoops were generally made of iron while girls’ hoops were generally made of wood. This toy was so popular that children would pose with their hoop and stick for rare photo opportunities.
The game “Change Seats!” was a popular 19th century parlor game. It may have been the precursor to Musical Chairs, though the rules of the game differed.
Like Musical Chairs, the game of Change Seats! required one less chair than there were players. All players except one are seated in a circle around the one player standing. The player standing asks one of the seated players, “Do you love your neighbor?” That seated player can either say yes, in which the players to either side of him/her can remain seated or the player can say no, in which the players on either side of him/her have to jump up and run around the circle of chairs to change seats. The player standing also runs around the circle to try and grab a vacant seat, causing one of the original seated players to now be the one standing and asking someone “Do you love your neighbor?”
Upon being asked if someone loves their neighbor, a player can also say, for example, “yes, except one who has blue eyes”, “yes, except one who plays a musical instrument”, “yes, except one whose birthday falls in July”, etc. Players can get as creative as they want with their responses, and all other seated players who fit the criteria must jump up, run around the circle of chairs and change seats before the player standing can grab one of the vacant chairs, causing a new player to stand and ask the question.
There is no finish to this game as seats are never removed like in Musical Chairs. The game continues going until the participants tire of playing. Change Seats! is also one of the only parlor games in which safety precautions were recommended. It was advised that all valuables and good furniture be removed from the playing area as the game could become chaotic at times.
“The Game of Life” is the longest running game still available today. It was invented in 1860 by Milton Bradley, though the title at the time was “The Checkered Game of Life”, the game board resembling a Checkers board.
“The Checkered Game of Life” was an immediate hit, as it was the first board game designed solely for entertainment whereas previous board games were designed to teach life lessons using religion and morals, such as “The Mansion of Happiness” (see three posts above).
A popular game in the 19th and very early 20th century was “Are You There, Moriarty?” Two players are blindfolded, given a rolled-up newspaper (or a pillow in the case of the photo below), and kneel down opposite one another while clasping hands. The first player asks, “Are you there, Moriarty?” to which his or her opponent replies, “Yes Sir/Ma’am, I am here!” Player 1 then has to try to blindly hit Player 2 in the head or torso with the newspaper, judging where he/she is only by the sound of their voice. Player 2 can try to dodge the blow, but their knees must remain in place at all times and clasped hands cannot come apart. Player 2 then asks, “Are you there, Moriarty?”, and attempts to hit Player 1 upon their response in the same manner. The two players continue taking turns asking the question, providing the answer and swinging the newspaper. The winner is the first to reach a certain number of hits on the other.
In later versions of the game, players’ knees were allowed to leave the ground in order to roll out of the way of a hit, though both players’ hands must still remain clasped.
It is unknown who Moriarty is or how the game came to be named as it was.
What is your idea of a fun game? Does it involve pinching someone’s nose? A game introduced in an 1854 parlor games book called “Pinch Without Laughing” was just that.
In “Pinch Without Laughing”, players sit side by side, or in a circle, taking turns pinching their neighbor’s nose. The object of the game is to be the player who laughs the least amount of times within a certain number of laughs allowed, determined prior to beginning the game. For instance, if two laughs are determined to be the maximum amount allowed, any player who laughs a third time is out of the game. The player remaining who has not yet laughed three times would be the winner. You cannot cause anyone to laugh other than by pinching your neighbor’s nose. It doesn’t have to specifically be your neighbor who laughs. If anyone in the game laughs, that’s a strike against them. You could pinch as lightly or as hard as you wanted.
When this game was popular in the 1850s, players would resort to trickery in order to get others to laugh. For example, some players blackened their index finger and thumb with burnt cork, leaving black smudges on their neighbor’s nose, causing others in the game to laugh.
At a time when keeping long eye contact with someone of the opposite gender with whom you were not in a relationship with was considered inappropriate, the game of “If You Love Me Dearest, Smile” was popular among adults in the 19th century, as it voided this unwritten rule.
Players would sit at a table, with one player being “it”. That player had to get every other player, one by one around the table, to smile. This would involve making eye contact with each individual and making facial expressions or gestures. Speaking or making sounds was not permitted. The winner was the person who could not be made to smile. This game allowed men and women to keep eye contact with each other for long periods of time and to flirt openly. This simple game is said to have likely led to many new relationships.
This nursery rhyme appears in the January 1887 publication of Babyland, a small monthly magazine containing rhymes and games for children. This rhyme involving fingers seems innocent enough but wait! What about the Tall Man?!
The origins of “Pin the Tail on the Donkey” are not exactly known but it is believed to have begun in Milwaukee in 1886, becoming a popular form of entertainment within elite social circles in Washington DC and New York City late that year. At the time, parties involving this game were known as a “Donkey Party”.
“Donkey parties are the latest thing in the way of a social gathering in Milwaukee. A large silhouette representing a tailless donkey is cut out of paper or cloth and fastened upon the wall. To each of the guests are given a cambric tail and a pin. Then they are blindfolded, one by one, placed in a corner opposite the donkey, are whirled three times around, and then started on a blind search for the donkey, upon which, if they reach it, the tail is to be pinned. If the guest goes in another direction and stumbles against a wall, door, chair, or anything else, there he must leave the tail. The movements of the blindfolded are apt to be ludicrous. The person who makes the best effort to place the tail upon the donkey where it belongs receives a present of some kind, while the guest who makes the most unsuccessful effort gets the booby prize.”
“The very latest social wrinkle that is convulsing capitol society, is the ‘Donkey parties’. Everybody, that is anybody, is trying that dexterous feat of ‘tailing the donkey’. Unless one has tried that adroit deed, you have no conception how much mental and physical strain is required. I have seen grave dignitaries and wily Representatives waltz confidently up to the donkey and miss him by ten feet. Senator Jacobs came very near attaching the caudal appendage to the neck, and Speaker pro tem Russell left the rear attachment on the off hoof. Senator Gears, the jolliest man in the senate, is contemplating giving a ‘Donkey party, in the basement of the capitol, to ‘donkeys’ only of the two foot tribe, and demonstrate practically that no blinded man can successfully accomplish the act in one trial, only.”
Those throughout the country who could not normally afford the entertainment that elite social classes and politicians enjoyed were now able to take part in one of their very activities, pinning a paper tail on an image of a donkey. Up until this time, donkey parties required the donkey and tails to be hand-drawn by players (a secondary contest to the game awarded a prize to the player who could draw the best donkey to be cut out and used for gameplay).
That same year, 1887, a Philadelphia man, named Charles Zimmerling, designed and patented the first Donkey Party game to be sold publicly. Game companies manufactured different images of the donkey, two of which appear below in the first and second photos, along with instructions. Ads for the game, like the one in the fourth photo, appeared in magazines nationwide.
“Donkey parties are going to be still more numerous during the coming season, and besides the usual participants will require the faithful representation of ‘Asinus’ and, what is equally important, an unlimited supply of tails. Many crude and ill formed resemblances of the donkey have been made to serve the purpose of having some fun. It is much better to procure a properly drawn donkey and all of his needed appendages. The inventor of this game is C. Zimmerling, of Philadelphia, and he has published a sheet on which the donkey and numerous tails are depicted. All that is necessary is to cut out the figures and they are then ready for use, following out the printed directions which the manufacturer supplies. This game is a very enjoyable indoor pastime, and for a jolly company is one of the best things desired for a winter evening’s amusement.”
