In 2023 alone, the board game industry topped $16.8 billion and is projected to reach $40.1 billion by 2032.
This forgotten game, printed the year after Missouri became a state, has a lot to say about America’s nascent board game industry, as well as how a young country saw itself.Produced by the New York cartography firm of F. & R. Lockwood, “The Travellers’ Tour Through the United States” first appeared in 1822, making it the earliest known board game printed in the US. It was an imitation of earlier European geography games, a genre of educational game.
Since “The Travellers’ Tour” was the first board game to employ a map of the US, it might have been an especially interesting gift to American consumers. It’s difficult, however, to gauge just how popular “The Travellers’ Tour” was in its time. No sales records are known to exist, and since so few copies remain, it likely wasn’t a big seller.
As the game pieces meander toward New Orleans, players learn about Richmond’s “fertile backcountry” and about the “polished manners and unaffected hospitality” of the citizens of Charleston. Savannah “contains many splendid edifices” and Columbia’s “South Carolina College bids fair to be a valuable institution.”