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With the advent of the American Civil War, Milton saw the interest in games fade until he created the idea of a small kit of games for the soldiers to play during periods of inactivity. His kit included chess, checkers, backgammon, dominoes, and his Checkered Game of Life. The kits were sold directly to the soldiers as well as charitable organizations who distributed them to the soldiers.

Milton's success with games monetarily carried his interest in supporting the new kindergarten movement. However, with the 1870 recession, his partners were no longer willing to support these extra costs. Milton chose to continue his support of the kindergarten movement and his friend, George Tapley, bought out the partners and became president. This left Milton free to invent new games and educational materials.

This foresight paid off by the early 1900s. Kindergartens were spreading across the United States and the teachers were buying Milton's art supplies, multiplication sticks, toy money, movable clock dials, story books, school furniture, and educational games. Milton Bradley Company's education department went from operating at a loss to being a major source of earnings for the company.1

Board game pioneer who invented The Game of Life

American draftsman and lithographer Milton Bradley founded the Milton Bradley Company, famous makers of family board games such as The Game of Life, CandyLand and Twister. Raised in Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts, Bradley attended Harvard's Lawrence Scientific School from 1854 to 1856. He then worked as a draftsman for the Wason Car Works, manufacturers of railcars, until 1860, when he founded a lithography business in Springfield, Massachusetts. His initial success with a lithograph of clean-shaven presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln was dashed after Lincoln grew his famous beard, but Bradley moved on with a board game called The Checkered Game of Life. Now called The Game of Life, it is part of a Milton Bradley catalog that includes Yahtzee, Connect 4, Chutes and Ladders, Mouse Trap, Operation and Big Ben jigsaw puzzles. Mr. Bradley was also an advocate of kindergarten programs and early art education, and for many years his company manufactured materials and published books for childhood education. Bradley himself published several books in the field, including Color in Kindergarten (1893) and Water Colors in the Schoolroom (1900).

"Triumph" is the name of an electronic board game invented by Coleman and Burten which they had hoped to sell to Milton Bradley

so they modified the game and resubmitted it to Milton Bradley after signing new disclosure agreements.  Triumph again was rejected by Milton Bradley

one year later, appellants discovered that Milton Bradley was marketing a new electronic board game under the name of "Dark Tower".  Because appellants believed that Dark Tower contained significant structural and design similarities to Triumph, they brought this action for trade secret misappropriation.

In 1860, Mr. Milton Bradley was a successful lithographer whose major product was a portrait of Abraham Lincoln. When Mr. Lincoln grew his trademark beard, Bradley's clean-shaven portrait was no longer popular. Out of desperation, Mr. Bradley printed up several copies of a game he'd invented called, "The Checkered Game of Life." Its immediate popularity put Milton Bradley in the game business. This was Milton Bradley's first game. He sold 45,000 copies of the game by the end of the year.

Bradley grew up in a working-class household in Lowell, Massachusetts.

completing high school he found work as a draftsman before enrolling at the Lawrence Scientific School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1856, he secured employment at the Watson Company in Springfield, Massachusetts.

company was shuttered during the recession of 1858, he entered business for himself as a mechanical draftsman and patent agent

visited a friend who challenged him to a game

Bradley was inspired with a new idea—he would invent a game

games were not Bradley's only interest. In 1869, Bradley published America's first book on kindergartens, Paradise of Childhood, by Friedrich Froebel.

Bradley printed and personally sold a new parlour game, The Checkered Game of Life, which became so profitable that he formed Milton Bradley and Company (1864) to print games and game manuals

Milton Bradley

orn November 8 1836 – Died May 30 1911

inventor of the Checkered Game of Life

born on Nov. 8, 1836, in Vienna, Me. As the owner of a lithography shop, he was looking for a profitable product to manufacture when he thought of printing board games. He created one called The Checkered Game of Life in the early 1860s and successfully peddled it all over New York State. He formed the Milton Bradley Company, which produced other games and standardized and popularized croquet in America.

(1836–1911), U.S. manufacturer.

began to work on making an American board game similar to an imported game he had played with friends. This new game used a top that spun to indicate the number of squares to move, a first in American board games. Bradley was also the first to redefine the purpose of the board game. In his first game, The Checkered Game of Life, Bradley continued the tradition of using the game to impart moral advice to those playing, but he also defined success in the game by looking at how much wealth each player was able to create and obtain.

Bradley found success when he used his troubled business to print copies of this new game. Within two days, he sold all the copies he had printed and sold another 40,000 copies of the game in the first year alone.

The Smashed-Up Locomotive, Candy Land, and Battleship.