Milton Bradley was a gamer before PlayStation or Nintendo existed. The Harvard-educated Bradley was a board game pioneer who saw the value in teaching personal character and educational basics with playtime. Not unlike the famous game he created in 1860 that is still found on store shelves today, Bradley’s life took some unforeseen twists and turns before his eponymous enterprise became synonymous with board games.
Life is funny like that.
Who Was Milton Bradley?
Bradley grew up in a small but loving working-class family. He was born in Maine, but the family moved to Lowell, Massachusetts, and that’s where he attended high school. His early work life hardly took a straight path. Bradley worked first as a draftsman and patent agent while saving for college at Harvard’s Lawrence Scientific School in Cambridge. He dropped out of college when his family moved to Connecticut, but when he was unable to find work there, he struck out on his own and moved to Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1856 and worked as a mechanical draftsman.
