Alfred Mosher Butts facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Alfred Mosher Butts
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Alfred Mosher Butts in 1924
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| Born | April 13, 1899 Poughkeepsie, New York, U.S.
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| Died | April 4, 1993 (aged 93) Rhinebeck, New York, U.S.
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| Education | Poughkeepsie High School |
| Alma mater | University of Pennsylvania |
| Occupation | Architect, board game designer |
| Known for | Inventing Scrabble |
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Alfred Mosher Butts was an American building designer and game inventor. He became world-famous for creating the popular board game Scrabble. He loved puzzles, art, and words.
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The Early Life of Alfred Mosher Butts
Alfred was born in Poughkeepsie, New York, on April 13, 1899. His mother was a high school teacher, and his father worked as a lawyer. Alfred attended Poughkeepsie High School and finished his studies there in 1917.
He then went to study building design at the University of Pennsylvania. He completed his college degree in 1924. Alfred loved drawing and was a talented amateur artist. Six of his special drawings were even bought by the famous Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Later, he married his wife Nina, and they shared 54 happy years together.
How Scrabble Was Invented
In the early 1930s, Alfred lost his job as an architect. Instead of giving up, he decided to invent a brand-new game. First, he studied many other games to see how they worked. He noticed that games usually fell into three main groups:
- Number games, which used dice or cards like bingo
- Moving games, like chess and checkers
- Letter games, such as word anagrams
Alfred lived in Jackson Heights in New York City when he had his big idea. He wanted to combine luck and spelling skill. He took ideas from word puzzles and crossword grids, which were very popular at the time.
Counting the Letters
To make his game fair, Alfred studied the front page of The New York Times newspaper. He counted every single letter to discover which ones appeared most often.
Common letters like "E" and "A" received lower score values because they were easy to use. Rare letters like "Q" and "Z" received high point values. Alfred gave players only four "S" tiles. He did this so players could not easily add an "S" to make plural words all the time.
From Lexiko to Scrabble
At first, Alfred called his invention Lexiko. Later, he changed the title to Criss Cross Words. Big game companies did not want to buy his idea at first. Alfred stayed patient and kept working on it.
Eventually, an entrepreneur named James Brunot teamed up with him. Brunot loved the idea, made slight changes to the rules, and chose the fun name Scrabble. In 1948, the name became an official trademark.
Brunot and his wife turned an old school building in Dodgingtown, Connecticut into a small game factory. At first, making the sets was slow and cost more money than they made. Everything changed when the president of the giant Macy's department store played the game on vacation. He loved it and ordered thousands of copies to sell.
Soon, so many people wanted Scrabble that another company called Selchow and Righter helped build and ship them. Millions of families around the world now enjoy playing this classic game. Jackson Heights even honored Alfred by adding tiny score numbers to a neighborhood street sign!
Later Life and Other Games
Alfred lived a long life and stayed creative as an older adult. In his 80s, he created another puzzle called Alfreds Other Game. This game was published by Selchow and Righter in 1985. It used 144 tiles and allowed players to build words like a solitaire puzzle. Players can also read about his inventions on the website BoardGameGeek. Alfred passed away peacefully in Rhinebeck, New York, in 1993, just before turning 94 years old.
