Okay....not really
The first commercially available Ouija board was manufactured by the Kennard Novelty Company in Baltimore, MD. and bears the patent date of February 10 1891.
The following year William Fuld introduced what would become the proverbial 'grandaddy' of all
Ouija and talking boards. His design is a near perfect copy of the Kennard board.
Luckily for Fuld, Mr. Kennard lost all his money and
his former employee Fuld was right there to take up the reigns.
The Parker Brothers eventually bought the Ouija name and design from William Fuld in 1966. The current Ouija board is produced by Hasbro, who acquired Parker Brothers in the late 1990's.
There were several precursors to the standard Ouija board prior to this time, including home made versions in the 1880's.
The main inspiration was drawn from
a planchette available during the 19th Century. People used these devices for automatic writing. A planchette
is a flat piece of wood, usually oval in shape, with a pencil or pen inserted in the middle. The wooden piece rested on rollers or casters, and was placed upon a sheet of paper.
The user then asked a question, closed their eyes, and placed their writing hand on the planchette.
The 'spirits' would then guide the writer's hand and form words and information.
By the 1920's their popularity was so great that many large newspapers ran articles and regular columns dealing with the phenomena of Talking Boards.
Humans have always craved knowledge that is seemingly beyond their daily grasp.
This process, known as divination, has been
used by all peoples since the beginning of time. Other examples include
the casting of Runes, a scrying glass, throwing bones (dice),
reading cards or simple meditation.
Ouija is the trademark name for the William Fuld/Parker Brothers board. The generic term
for these divination devices is "talking board".
Since Ouija is the oldest known brand name, and has survived hundreds of other talking board companies,
most folks erroneously refer to all of these boards as Ouija. It's kind of like calling all photocopies a Xerox, even though there are many other brands of
copy machines.
Ouija and talking boards were extremely popular from 1900 through the 1950's. At one time virtually every home in America had a Ouija board.
Their popularity inspired Norman Rockwell to paint a Ouija cover for the May 1st 1920 edition of the Saturday Evening Post. There were also at least 2 popular songs written and released in the 1920's, including
"Wee-Gee Wee-Gee Tell Me Do", a copy of which resides on my piano and is dated 1922.
There were literally hundreds of companies making these boards, from the
fly-by-night St. Louis Plywoood Company to the venerable Drueke Games, who are still in business today.
Drueke manufactured their first talking board in 1944 and named it the Mystic Soothsayer. The company continued to produce high quality chess, checkers and backgammon sets but discontinued the talking board after only a year or two.
Note that the Mystic Soothsayer was released during the Second World War. Ouija boards have been very popular during times of war and seem to wane in times of peace. Many boards were produced during and immediately following the First World War, from 1918 through the early 1920's. Several companies even used the name Ouija on their boards. The Hasbro lawyers would not allow that to happen these days!
Fast Forward to 1972:
The Exorcist is released in theaters and the Ouija board is portrayed as an
agent of the devil. The popular 'game' suddenly took on a dark side and Ouija boards were thrown in the trash
all over the world.
As usual, Hollywood went with the horror film stereotypes. We were contacted by DreamWorks (along with 2 other Ouija aficionados of the web)
for information on Ouija boards, since they were to play a integral part in What Lies Beneath.
William Fuld claimed that he was not a spiritualist, but just a garden variety Presbyterian.
He did admit that he consulted the Ouija to build his factory, although he stated that he never consulted the board again.
After purchasing the Ouija name and patent from William Fuld, the Parker Brothers moved their factory to Salem, Massachusetts. Perfect isn't it?
Stories abound concerning the Ouija and other talking boards. From the woman who channelled an
entire book from Mark Twain's ghost to the apocryphal teenage
Click on Ouija Stories below for more
In 2001 Drueke manufactured a limited run of these boards for a Halloween promotion. This is the only instance of a comapny re-introducing a talking board.
Some of the rarer and more artistically elaborate talking boards can fetch upwards of $350.00 at auctions, depending on their condition and scarcity. Many vintage boards are made of a pressed wood with an applied lithograph. Some of these boards are truly American works of art. Some are simply campy and fun and a few are very politically incorrect in our modern times.
Stories of possession by demons and spirits, conjured up by teenagers with the Ouija board, proliferated.
The Exorcist spawned a slew of films which portrayed the Ouija board in a bad light.
Starting with the original Witchboard
horror flick (which is lots of fun) up to What Lies Beneath with Michelle Pfeiffer and Harrison Ford.
When the movie was finally released the Ouija angle had been reduced to 3 minutes in a bathroom. Oh well. Better than no Ouija at all!
Alas, this was not based on sage advice from the Ouija board, but sage advice from the Parker's accountants.
"The Ouija board told me my friend would die next week and he DID..."
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I swear that each of these things has been told to me, ad nauseum...
They are ALL apocryphal.
Psychotic morons and bad dietary habits kill people...
Ouija remains a perennial favorite, and hey, they just seem to fly off the shelves...
The last William Fuld style Ouija was produced in January 1999. The only version in current production is the Glow in the Dark Board.
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Reader's Ouija Stories |  |
For the most comprehensive information on the history of Ouija Boards, and everything else that you ever wanted to know about talking boards, visit The Museum of Talking Boards
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