Logomachy: A Look at a Nineteenth-Century Card Game

Logomachy Box, courtesy of Boston Children's Museum.

While perusing the Gibson House archives for research material, I found an instruction manual for an 1874 children’s card game called Logomachy, or War of Words, designed by F. A. Wright, a games maker from Cincinnati. It appears that Wright’s game was well received, as he won the Highest Premium Silver Medal for Best New Parlor Game at the Cincinnati Industrial Exposition that year (which is proudly proclaimed on the instruction manual).

The deck, which was not included with the manual I found, consisted of fifty-six cards. A single letter was printed on each card along with an illustration, such as a bird, wolf, or children at play. With more cards than letters, many of the letters were duplicated to allow for the spelling of words. The letters J, K, V, X, Q, and Z were prize cards and earned players who could use them to form words an additional one or two points.

Front and Back of Card, courtesy of Boston Children's Museum.

To play the game, four cards were dealt to each player and the dealer placed four more cards face up in the “pool,” or common space from which all players drew cards. Players then attempted to form words, known as “tricks” in the game. This was accomplished by playing one card in the hand in combination with any number from the pool. Any player who could spell a word with all the cards in the pool performed a “sweep” and earned an extra point. At the end of each turn, the pool and hand were replenished. Play continued in this fashion until the deck was exhausted. Then points were tallied, the cards re-shuffled, and a new round began.

At the end of each round, points were distributed thus: three points to the player with the greatest number of cards, one to two points for each prize card, and additional points for every sweep. The first to score twenty-one points won the game.

"Z" Card, Double Prize, courtesy of Boston Children's Museum.

As part of my research for this post, I created my own deck and played several rounds with my seventeen-year-old sister, Caitlyn. (And as with all card games, she won nearly every time.) She and I enjoyed the game, so it is easy to see why it proved so popular when it was first introduced. Importantly, children new to letters and spelling could develop a valuable skill in a fun and exciting way.

Although I could find little biographical information about F. A. Wright, there are at least two other known games he designed and sold. Both are card games. One is called What O’Clock, or Old Father Time, and is advertised on the back of the Logomachy instructions. Based on the advertisement’s description, the game was intended to teach children how to tell time, with each card representing all the hours and half-hours of the day and night. The other game, Moneta, or Money Makes Money, was similarly educational, teaching players how to count currency. Cards represented United States coins in all the denominations available in the late nineteenth century. The objective was to accumulate the most money in the course of play, so it seems the game was also intended to impart the values of capitalism.

In fact, education seems to have been a common theme among many of the nineteenth-century children’s board games I have seen. For example, Snakes and Ladders, introduced around this time, taught children the importance of living a moral life. Ladders, or virtues, guided players toward their heavenly destination, while snakes, or sins, returned them to a lower part on the board.

Indeed, commercialized games seemed to reflect new attitudes about childhood that developed over the course of the nineteenth century. According to historian Stephen Kline, as the western world rapidly industrialized, concerned individuals sought to remove or shield children from the harsh realities of this new world, viewing them “as innocent beings in need of formation and learning.”* Games and other organized activities provided the opportunity to educate children and guide their development in a safer, more nurturing way.

*Stephen Kline, “The Making of Children’s Culture,” in The Children’s Culture Reader, ed. Henry Jenkins (New York: New York University Press, 1998), 98, accessed via JSTOR February 2, 2016.

  

By Timothy Spezia, museum docent

Image Source: Boston Children's Museum, Boston, MA.

Sources:
Daniel J. Kenny, Cincinnati Exposition Guide and Catalogue of Fine Arts Department, Containing the Name and Address of Every Exhibitor at the Fifth Cincinnati Industrial Exposition of 1874 (Cincinnati: Cincinnati Gazette Co., 1874), accessed via hathitrust.org, December 5, 2015.

Stephen Kline, “The Making of Children’s Culture,” in The Children’s Culture Reader, ed. Henry Jenkins (New York: New York University Press, 1998). 

Victoria and Albert Museum of Childhood, “Snakes and Ladders,” Victoria and Albert Museum of Childhood, accessed January 27, 1016, www.vam.ac.uk/moc/article/snakes-and-ladders/ 
F. A. Wright, Explanations and Rules for Playing the New, Instructive, and Amusing Game of Logomachy, or War of Words, 1874.