The Mansion of Happiness (c1843)
America's first mass-produced board game
The Mansion of Happiness: An Instructive Moral and Entertaining Amusement is a children's board game inspired by Christian morality. Players race about a 66-space spiral track depicting virtues and vices with their goal being the Mansion of Happiness [Heaven] at track's end. Instructions upon virtue spaces advance players toward the goal while those upon vice spaces force them to retreat.
"Be virtuous then and forward press, to gain the seat of happiness" from Rules (below)
One of the earliest children's board games published in America was The Mansion of Happiness (1843), "the progenitor of American board games". Like other children's games that followed in its wake, The Mansion of Happiness was based on the Puritan world view that Christian virtue and deeds were assurances of happiness and success in life. Even game mechanics were influenced by the Puritan view. A spinner or a top-like teetotum, for instance, was utilized in children's board games rather than dice, which were then associated with Satan and gambling. While the Puritan view forbade game playing on the Sabbath, The Mansion of Happiness and similar games with high moral content would have been permitted for children in more liberal households. ~ Wikipedia
From the instructions for the game: Rule 8: Whoever gets into the ROAD TO FOLLY must return to PRUDENCE while Rule 3 instructs those with HONESTY or SINCERITY to advance six spaces forward. Try your hand at this game by downloading the original instructions (below). This game was played with a teetotum, a numbered spinning top, but can easily be played with a die today. ~ A Look Back at Board Games
Title: The mansion of happiness, an instructive, moral & entertaining amusement / Thayer & Co's. Lithogy., Boston.
Creator(s): B.W. Thayer & Co., lithographer
Date Created/Published: Salem, Mass. : Published by W. & S.B. Ives, c1843.
Medium: 1 print : lithograph, color.
Reproduction Number: LC-USZC4-5133
Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA