Milton Bradley

But Bradley preferred to define success in secular business terms consistent with America's emerging focus on "the causal relationship between character and wealth. A native of Vienna Maine Bradley grew up in a working-class household in Lowell Massachusetts. The squares each represented a social virtue or vice such as "influence" or "poverty" with the former earning a player points and the latter retarding his progress.

Eventually Bradley moved forward with an idea he had for a board game which he called The Checkered Game of Life an early version of what later became The Game of Life. Milton Bradley (November 8 1836 – May 30 1911) was an American game pioneer credited by many with launching the board game industry in North America with Milton Bradley Company. In 1856 he secured employment at the Watson Company in Springfield Massachusetts.