The entire northern side of this case is devoted to the card games other than regular playing cards, which owe their existence to the prejudice against cards or to the demand for simple and instructive amusements for children and young people. Mr. Milton Bradley has contributed some interesting notes on the history of such games in this country. In 1843 Miss Annie W. Abbott, a clergyman’s daughter of Beverly, Mass., offered to Mr. Ives, a publisher of Salem, Mass., a card game which she called “Dr. Buzby.” This game, which was the first of its kind, was reluctantly published by Mr. Ives and met with an astonishing success, no less than 50,000 copies being sold in the following year. It will be remembered by many of the parents of the present day as among the earliest games ever learned and possibly played upon the sly through fear of reprimand. A pack of the original Dr. Buzby cards will be found at the beginning of this collection. The game of “Authors” was originated by a young man living in Salem, helped by some of his female acquaintances. The method of play was copied from “Dr. Buzby,” but it contained an element of instruction and profit not found in the older game. He took it to a local publisher to see if he could have ten or a dozen packs printed, as it was too much work for him to print them. Mr. Smith, the publisher, saw the possibilities of the game and told him if he would let him make them, he would supply his needs gratis, to which he consented. This was in 1861, and the sale of this game has since been wonderful. Many modifications and improvements of the original game are shown in the collection.
Soon after the publication of “Dr. Buzby,” a teacher in a young ladies’ school in Salem devised a game of letters which has since become popular under the various names of “Spelling Puzzle,” “Word Making and Word Taking,” “War of Words,” “Anagrams,” “Logomachy,” “Words and Sentences,” etc. The publications of the Milton Bradley Company, McLaughlin Bros., and E. I. Horsman are here exhibited, and no less than 78 different card games are displayed. They are classified in groups according to the methods of play, which, in spite of the ingenuity displayed in the designs of the cards, are relatively very limited in number, the ideas in the main being derived from games already played with regular playing cards.