A particularly remarkable 1890 card version, also called “Up to Date,” features a bicycle-riding, bloomer-wearing old maid. Soon the manufacturers made board games with the same title. To be fair, some makers marketed the game as Old Maid and Old Bachelor, with two extra cards instead of one both versions played exactly the same way.

Old Maid card game, about 1890, Clark & Sowdon. Those madcap Victorians with their layers of etiquette, rules of deportment, extremes in dress, and more chose to reinforce the negative example of a spinster or unmarried woman, with a popular card game! Old Maid enjoyed a surge of popularity during the late-19th century, when American card and game manufacturers created the first wave of popular home games. Take any card deck, remove a queen, a jack, or any card, and you can play the game. (Please forgive the now-offensive images in the this blog they reflect the historical times in which they originated.) The game came to the Western world from Asia, where playing cards originated, and nearly every European country has a version with a different title. If we ignore, for a moment, the stereotypical and sexist connotations of the name, we discover that Old Maid has a fascinating history. And most dictionaries carry one more meaning for it: “A child’s card game.” Used as early as 1761 for the title of a play by Irishman Arthur Murphy, it also means an unpopped kernel in a pot of popcorn.

The term “old maid” is English and means an unmarried childless woman or spinster. Illustrated detail from Old Maid card game, about 1890, Milton Bradley Company.ĭid you play card games as a child? If so, you probably played a version of Old Maid.

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