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Where did the Ouija board come from?
The Ouija board is a talking board method that grew out of 19th-century American Spiritualism. Its commercial form was produced in Baltimore from 1890, when Charles Kennard's company began selling boards under the name Ouija, with patent and naming accounts still disputed.
Facts checked on against 13 sources, 5 of them museum, university, archive, library, government or primary texts.
Key facts
Every line comes from a source listed at the bottom of the page. The small numbers point to it.
| 1848 | The Fox sisters in Hydesville, New York, reported communicating with a spirit through raps, an event later treated as the start of modern Spiritualism.12 |
|---|---|
| 1861 | Kardec's Le Livre des Mediums described a pencil-on-table method and an alphabet-board method in which a pointer moved along letters.3 |
| 1886 | The New York Tribune reported on a talking board craze in northern Ohio, and reports of a similar board used by Spiritualists appeared in the press.12 |
| 1890 | Elijah Bond's patent was filed May 28, 1890, and Charles Kennard formed the Kennard Novelty Company with investors; the name Ouija is tied to a seance that April in Baltimore.142 |
| 1897 | Washington Bowie leased manufacturing rights to William and Isaac Fuld, and Isaac joined the company that year.12 |
| 1919 | Fuld had acquired exclusive rights to the brand and opened a three-story factory on Harford Avenue in Baltimore.4 |
| 1927 | William Fuld died in February after a fall from the roof of his Baltimore factory; one version calls it suicide and another an accident.25 |
| 1967 | Parker Brothers had bought the Ouija rights from the Fuld family in 1967, and that year the board outsold Monopoly.136 |
Spiritualist roots: table turning and the planchette
Talking boards have their roots in Spiritualism, the belief that the dead can communicate with the living, according to SFO Museum's exhibition text.17
Before the flat alphabet board, Spiritualist mediums used table turning, in which sitters rested fingers on a table that tilted and knocked to letters of the alphabet; the planchette, a heart-shaped device on wheels with a pencil, was used to write messages automatically.268
Mediums later developed devices that let spirits point directly to letters, and the planchette merged with the alphabet board to produce what became the Ouija board.9
From a Baltimore novelty to a commercial game
Charles Kennard, a Chestertown, Maryland, businessman, read a newspaper story about talking boards and then helped start making them; he and a coffin-maker friend moved to St. Paul Street in Baltimore and produced more polished boards than the homemade versions common at the time.4
The Kennard Novelty Company was incorporated on October 30, 1890, and by 1892 to 1893 it had offices in Baltimore, Chicago, New York and London.4
From 1890 to 1950, dozens of manufacturers, including Kennard, Fuld, Haskelite and Lee, produced their own versions of the talking board.10
Accounts of the name and the inventor
According to the exhibition's story, the board itself gave the name Ouija and said it meant good luck; Kennard said the board spelled O-U-I-J-A and, when asked, answered 'Good Luck.'12
Accounts differ on who designed the board: Washington Bowie named E. C. Reiche of Chestertown, Maryland, as the inventor, while Kennard claimed sole credit in letters to the Baltimore Sun in 1919.2
Reiche, a cabinet and coffin maker, devised a wooden lap tray with the alphabet, numbers 1 to 10, and YES and NO, and said he named the board Ouija because he believed the word was Egyptian for luck.54
What the tradition holds
How practitioners describe it, in their terms. Described, not endorsed.
The Talking Board Historical Society, formed from a loose affiliation of collectors brought together by historian Robert Murch in 2008, describes its mission as researching, preserving and celebrating the history of talking boards, their makers and their users.111213
Practitioners and collectors have memorialised the Ouija's founders: the Society erected a talking board-inspired headstone at the unmarked grave of patentee Elijah Bond in Green Mount Cemetery, Baltimore, and has sought a marker for medium Helen Peters Nosworthy, whom it credits with naming the board.12
What the evidence shows
What historians, scientists and controlled tests have found.
Historian Horowitz (2009) argues that the conventional history crediting Fuld with inventing Ouija around 1890 is wrong, and a New York Daily Tribune article of March 28, 1886 describes a rectangular talking board that Horowitz calls the spitting image of Ouija.3
Cornelius (2005) identifies E. C. Reiche as the earliest figure historians can connect to the Ouija's origins, while noting that no written records survive to verify how Bond, Kennard and the third collaborator designed the board.3
Worked out from the evidence
Not stated outright by any one source. It is worked out from the sources cited.
- The Ouija board grew out of Spiritualist table turning and planchette writing in mid-19th-century America and was turned into a commercial parlor game in Baltimore in 1890.1728465
- The question of who first made the board remains open, since the accounts of Bowie, Kennard, Reiche and later historians disagree and the early records are incomplete.23
Not yet confirmed
- Who first designed the board that became the Ouija: Kennard, Bond, Reiche, or an earlier maker?
- How far did the 1886 Ohio and New York talking boards shape the Baltimore design?
Sources
Museums, universities, archives and primary texts first. Every fact is paraphrased and nothing is copied; Wikipedia is never cited.
- sfomuseum.org: The Mysterious Talking Board: Ouija and Beyond | SFO Museum. Read on · Museum
- museumoftalkingboards.com: Museum of Talking Boards: History of the Talking Board. Read on · Museum
- yronwode.org: Spirit Board Bibliography: Ouija, Spirit Boards, Talking Boards, Their History and Use.. Read on · Reference
- americanhauntingsink.com: TALKING BOARDS — American Hauntings. Read on · Reference
- e-tarocchi.com: The Mystery of the Talking Board: An Exhaustive 130-Year History of the Ouija | e-Tarocchi. Read on · Reference
- smdailyjournal.com: Museum gotta see ‘um | Arts & Entertainment | smdailyjournal.com. Read on · Museum
- ancient-origins.net: Tracing the Origins of the Infamous Ouija Board | Ancient Origins. Read on · Reference
- thesocietypages.org: Where Did the Ouija Board Come From? - Sociological Images. Read on · Reference
- museumoftalkingboards.com: Museum of Talking Boards: An Online Museum of Ouija Boards. Read on · Museum
- tbhs.org: Talking Board Historical Society. Read on · Reference
- paranormalpopculture.com: Paranormal Pop Culture: The Ouija Files: Talking Board Historical Society Goes Public. Read on · Reference
- robertmurch.com: Robert Murch – The world's foremost collector, historian, and expert on Ouija and talking boards.. Read on · Reference