Museum Collections
Luce Center
The Game of Playing Department Store
Title
The Game of Playing Department Store
Date
1898
Medium
Cardboard, wood, paper
Dimensions
Overall: 1 1/2 x 22 1/2 x 15 in. ( 3.8 x 57.2 x 38.1 cm )
Description
"The Game of Playing Department Store" board game with fifty-two circular counters yellow on one side and black on the other and forty-two round cards representing money with denominations between ten cents and five dollars stored under a flap on the right side of the paper covered cardboard game board; board applied to the top of the bottom half of the paper covered cardboard and wood box; board chromolithographed with fourteen store departments divided as triangles around a star in the center meant to hold an indicator, each department, including China, Grocery, Toys, candy, etc., has examples of the goods they sell and their prices; box cover chromolithographed with nine children playing department store, with used boots, fabric and jars of food set up on crates and a barrel; box cover lithographed, "THE GAME OF/ PLAYING/ DEPARTMENT/ STORE/ COPYRIGHT 1898 BY/ McLOUGHLIN BROS.,/ NEW YORK"; instructions printed on the underside of the box cover.
Credit Line
The Liman Collection
Object Number
2000.715
Marks
lithographed: on the box cover: "THE GAME OF/ PLAYING/ DEPARTMENT/ STORE/ COPYRIGHT 1898 BY/ McLOUGHLIN BROS.,/ NEW YORK"
Gallery Label
The box cover and gameboard of The Game of Playing Department Store demonstrate the bold, vivid chromolithography characteristic of the best 19th-century board games. Inspired by a recent American innovation -- shopping emporiums selling a wide variety of goods under one roof -- the game encouraged players to accumulate the greatest quantity of goods while spending their money as economically as possible.
Due to ongoing research, information about this object is subject to change.





