Milton Bradley

Milton Bradley is a brand of the Hasbro company. It was established as a game company in 1860 in Springfield, Massachusetts by Milton Bradley.http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgamepublisher/20/milton-bradley In subsequent years Milton Bradley acquired other game companies, such as the game portion of McLoughlin Brothers and Selchow and Righter, who manufactured Scrabble and Parcheesi. It was later purchased by Hasbro, who retained it as a brand.http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgamepublisher/20/milton-bradley

Founded in 1860, Milton Bradley is the oldest US game manufacturer. It was originally established as a lithography company by founder Milton Bradley, an inventor-industrialist. While looking for a different application for his lithography business, which might make a better profit, he stumbled on the idea of producing games. The first game produced by the company was "The Checkered Game of Life". The game was an instant hit with dealers, and he sold his entire first run of several hundred games in just a few days.http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/Milton-Bradley-Company-Company-History.html

That winter, the game became an American fad, and he sold 40,000 copies by spring, but stopped game production because of the war effort. As time passed, Bradley noticed that the local soldiers were bored and he produced a small game kit that was portable and could be taken wherever they were stationed. It included not only version of "The Checkered Game of Life" but also, chess, checkers, backgammon and dominoes. By the end of the war the Milton Bradley company was very profitable.http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/Milton-Bradley-Company-Company-History.html

Milton Bradley was an innovative game company, coming up with new and different ideas, some of which were ahead of their time. An example of this would be the MB Microvision hand-held gaming system. It was released in 1979 and had thirteen games that could be changed out for play. The entire front of the game system detached and was replaced with another for a different game. It used two 9-volt batteries in the early version, though a later version worked with one. It had a very small LCD screen and the controls changed out depending on the game played.http://www.handheldmuseum.com/MB/uVUS.htm The game system never caught on, and almost a decade later, the Gameboy succeeded as a hand-held system.

• 1860: Founded by Milton Bradley
• 1869: Began producing children's education materialshttp://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/Milton-Bradley-Company-Company-History.html
• 1870s: By this time, Milton Bradley was producing dozens of games and puzzleshttp://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/Milton-Bradley-Company-Company-History.html
• 1911: Milton Bradely died and Ralph Ellis began directing the companyhttp://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/Milton-Bradley-Company-Company-History.html
• 1920: Reported net earnings of $350,000 and sales of approximately $3.5 millionhttp://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/Milton-Bradley-Company-Company-History.html
• 1941: James J. Shea became the president of the company and began its post-Depression recoveryhttp://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/Milton-Bradley-Company-Company-History.html
• 1960: Company celebrated its centennial
• 1968: James Shea, Jr. took over for his father as presidenthttp://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/Milton-Bradley-Company-Company-History.html
• 1977: Released the game "Simon" and joined the electronic game industryhttp://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/Milton-Bradley-Company-Company-History.html
• 1984: Acquired by Hasbrohttp://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/Milton-Bradley-Company-Company-History.html