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Cabin Fever Curiosites
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Experts Now Believe Ouija Boards sent to Earth by Ancient Astronauts!!. Okay....not really
The first Ouija board was manufactured by the Kennard Novelty Company 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.
Parker Brothers eventually bought the Ouija name and design from William Fuld in the early 1960's. There were several precursors to the Ouija board prior to this time. 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.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 has not manufactured a talking board in more than 50 years but continues to produce high quality chess, checkers and backgammon sets.
Some of the rarer and more artistically elaborate talking boards can fetch upwards of $300.00 at auctions, depending on their condition and scarcity.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.
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.As usual, Hollywood went with the horror film stereotypes. I was contacted by the folks at DreamWorks (along with 2 other Ouija mavens of the web) for information on Ouija boards, since they were to play a integral part in What Lies Beneath.
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!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?
Alas, this was not based on sage advice from the Ouija board, but sage advice from the Parker's accountants.
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
"The Ouija board told me my friend would die next week and he DID..."Click on Ouija Stories below for more!
Classic Ouija Stories 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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