The genre of card games emerged in the UK around the mid eighteenth century, with cards that were developed as an educational aid.http://www.aurinkolasitmyynti.com/ , By the early 1800s, there were games such as The Historical Game of Grecian History, which was created by John Wallis, one of the best known games manufacturers of the late eighteenth to early nineteenth century.http://www.solglasogonbutik.com/ , These cards like many others, were printed in black ink and hand coloured afterwards.http://www.comprarmontblanc.com/ , It was not until the 1860s, when John Jaques Ltd decided to bring out two new games of grotesque character cards, purely for entertainment that card games gained an increased popularity.http://www.montblancloja.com/ , These were called Happy Families and Snap and were drawn by John Tenniel of Alice in Wonderland fame.At first the backs of these cards were plain but after a few years a complicated pattern was added, to hide up marks from grubby hands and over use. These cards proved such a popular sideline that soon more games were added to the ever growing list. It wasn't long before other companies started following their lead including Thomas De la Rue Ltd, and A Collier Ltd two of the foremost playing card manufacturers of the day, and so the genre of card games was truly established.Some games were developed to take advantage of the important news of the day, such as the celebrated court case in 1871-72 of a man claiming to be the missing Sir Roger Titchborne, heir to a large family fortune. Never a company to miss an opportunity, almost immediately Jaques bought out a game called "Who's Sir Roger".Most of the card manufacturers originally sold stationery, indeed the games were sold in stationers rather than toy shops, making them available to all and appealing to all generations.In the 1890s Johnstone Brothers (Harbourne) Ltd, better known as Chad Valley, started producing card games as did the Roberts Brothers of Gloucester under the name Glevum Toys.In 1903 H. P. Gibson started up The International Card Co. with one of his first games being "The New Game of Peter Pan", as J M Barrie's play Peter Pan was all the rage at the time. Even after he had sold The International Card Co. to De la Rue's in 1919, he set up another new company, H. P. Gibson & sons which is still going strong today making card games and jigsaws.The new economic realities at end of the First World War saw the closure or amalgamation of some of the old card firms due to lack of staff and investment.Meanwhile in Bavaria, just outside of Nuremberg the small German firm of J.W.Spear & Sons started selling games aimed at the UK and English speaking markets. They had opened their modern factory using steam powered machines in 1899. Germany at the time was the games capital of the world and their games were made in German, French, Dutch and Spanish as well as English. But it wasn't until 1932 that they set up a small factory in Enfield, Middlesex (UK) to get around the crippling increase in import duty.It was during the late 1920s and early 1930s that Chad Valley started producing Disney Mickey Mouse games for the UK market, and just after that, in about mid 1930s, Castell Brothers (who up until then had published books) started the Pepys series of card games. One of their first card games being "Mickey's Funfair" featuring Disney's famous mouse and his friends.Also about this time Amalgamated Press who produced children's annuals formed Waddy Productions to bring out card games such as "Spelling Bee" and "Fleet Street".In 1934 Waddingtons the board game manufacturers bought out their first card game "Lexicon", the first of many card games.Business was booming for all the Card game manufacturers but dark clouds were looming over Europe. In fact, with the lead up to the Second world War, societies anxieties were reflected in their card games which seem to have taken a more militaristic turn, with games such as Tree Brand's "Convoy" and Pepys "England Expects". At the start of the war, when everything was gearing up for war production, many people in the government wanted to stop the manufacture of playing cards, because they saw it as a waste of time and resources. It was the famous Winston Churchill himself who argued against this. Ever a man with the common touch, he declared that having playing cards during their breaks and off duty hours would relief the stress and relax the service and civilian populations. This lead to a reprieve for the card manufacturers and the creation of lots of themed games including "War Planes", "Blackout" and "Victory". Many games were devised at this time with grotesque caricatures of enemy leaders.Some manufacturers like Jaques, went a stage further actively helping the war effort by hiding maps and currency in the different games they sent through the Red Cross to prisoners of war to aid their escape. As soon as the war ended many factories went back to their peace time activities and with the baby boom of the late 1940s and 50s, soon had an even larger market than ever for their card games.With the television and cinema becoming more popular another group of card games appeared based on well known characters of the small and large screen. One of the first to appear was a "Muffin" game by Pepys base on the favourite children's television show featuring a Mule puppet and his friends.
They also published many Disney card games based on the various films that came out during this time.By contrast, the American card game industry started around 1840's with W. & S.B. Ives of Salem, Massachusetts. One of the first recorded games is THE IMPROVED AND ILLUSTRATED GAME OF DR. BUSBY was published by W. AND S. B. IVES. and invented by Miss Anne W. Abbott of Beverly, Mass. in 1843.Just a decade later, in 1852 one of the first cross merchandising packs of cards came about when they produced a game based on Harriet Beecher Stowe's famous novel Uncle Tom's Cabin.By the 1860s they had competitors in McLoughlin Bros, Inc. Based in New York who used artists on a simple production line to hand colour in the line drawings of their cards.Just a little after this, Milton Bradley of Springfield, Massachusetts a lithographer by trade, started producing some games. The most successful of which was THE CHECKERED GAME OF LIFE, a literal pocket sized game that was even carried around by American Civil War soldiers. Throughout the economic depression that followed the Civil War, Milton Bradley also developed educational toys and games for schools, as well as families.It was in the late 1860s that Elisha Selchow formed E.G. Selchow & Co. in New York and realised permission to market PARCHEESI, THE GAME OF INDIA,which he trademarked as PARCHEESI in 1874. In 1880 the name of the company was changed to Selchow & Righter when Elisha took John Righter on as a partner. Meanwhile in 1883 in Salem, Massachusetts, at the age of sixteen, George S Parker developed his first game. Then in 1888, when one of his brothers joined the firm, Parker Brothers was formed.By the turn of the century with mass immigration and the industrialization of the large towns society and tastes were changing. Companies started using cheaper materials, producing more games but of lower quality. In 1904 George Parker developed the popular game of PIT followed two years later by ROOK which soon became the leading game throughout the world.After the First World War (as in the UK) many small companies folded and in 1920 McLoughlin Bros., Inc was taken over by Milton Bradley. Later on in the 20s, new companies appeared on the scene including Alderman-Fairchild (All-Fair) in upstate New York and Whitman in New York ready to cash in on the new craze for anything about Cars, the new historic discoveries of the day and the new innovation of flight. It wasn't until 1932 that games companies started to feel the pinch of the depression, even then most of them were secure, because the games were fairly inexpensive and all the family could play.During the Second World War many factories were turned over to war time productions and the games that were produced were mainly patriotic. After the war the games companies found themselves fighting another kind of war, one against the new idea of the television. Families gathered around the television rather than playing games. Only the larger manufacturers could afford the advertising fees that the television companies asked for. Many of the smaller companies went under and by the early 1980s all the larger companies had been taken over by Hasbro and the names Milton Bradley and Parker Brothers are now just divisions of this larger company.