Travellers' Tour Through the United States
 The game board and instructions | |
| Publishers | F. & R. Lockwood |
|---|---|
| Publication | 1822 |
| Genres | Geography, educational |
| Players | 2–4 |
Travellers' Tour Through the United States is a geographical board game published in 1822, thought to be the first board game produced in the United States.[1][2][3]
The educational game was published by F. & R. Lockwood, New York-based cartographers.[1][2][4] The game consisted of a map, which players would traverse via 139 municipalities that they had to correctly identify in order to move forward, determining how far they could move with a teetotum.[1][3] In an advanced version of the game, players were also required to name the populations of the cities and towns they landed on, and the game also offered trivia about each locality.[3][5] The winner was the first player to reach New Orleans.[1]
Travellers' Tour was also the first board game based on a map of the United States.[1][4] At the time, the nation's westernmost states were Louisiana and Missouri, the latter of which had only gained statehood a year prior to the game's publication.[1][5]
The Mansion of Happiness (1843) was previously thought to be the oldest American board game, before Travellers' Tour was discovered in the American Antiquarian Society's archives in 1991.[1] Mansion of Happiness was also based on a previously extant British game, while Travellers' Tour was a wholly American creation.[5]
A sister game, Travellers' Tour Through Europe, was released a few months after.[2][6] This was later followed by Travellers' Tour Round the World.[7]
External links[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ a b c d e f g Sivils, Matthew Wynn (2024-05-08). "What America's first board game can teach us about the aspirations of a young nation". The Conversation. Retrieved 2024-05-10.
- ^ a b c "Antiques: When games were played with dice and boards". The Desert Sun. 2024-01-28. Retrieved 2024-05-10.
- ^ a b c Guerra, Douglas A. (2018-08-14). Slantwise Moves: Games, Literature, and Social Invention in Nineteenth-Century America. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0-912295-48-0.
- ^ a b "The traveller's tour through the United States". Library of Congress. Retrieved 2024-05-10.
- ^ a b c "Travellers' Tour Through the United States". BoardGameGeek. Retrieved 2024-05-10.
- ^ Seville, Adrian; Depaulis, Thierry; Bekkering, Geert H. (2023-07-31). Playing with Maps: Cartographic Games in Western Culture. BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-68114-9.
- ^ Nissenbaum, Stephen (2010-12-01). The Battle for Christmas: A Cultural History of America's Most Cherished Holiday. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-307-76022-7.