Alfred Mosher Butts facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Alfred Mosher Butts
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| Born | April 13, 1899 |
| Died | April 4, 1993 (aged 93) Rhinebeck, New York, United States
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| Education | Poughkeepsie High School |
| Alma mater | University of Pennsylvania |
| Known for | Inventing board game Scrabble |
Alfred Mosher Butts (born April 13, 1899 – died April 4, 1993) was an American architect. He is most famous for inventing the popular board game Scrabble in 1938.
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Who Was Alfred Butts?
Alfred Mosher Butts was born in Poughkeepsie, New York, on April 13, 1899. His father, Allison Butts, was a lawyer. His mother, Arrie Elizabeth Mosher, was a high school teacher.
Alfred went to Poughkeepsie High School and finished in 1917. Later, he studied at the University of Pennsylvania. He earned a degree in architecture in 1924.
Besides his work, Alfred was also an amateur artist. Six of his drawings were even bought by the famous Metropolitan Museum of Art.
He passed away on April 4, 1993. This was just nine days before his 94th birthday.
How Scrabble Was Born
In the early 1930s, Alfred Butts was an architect, but he lost his job. He decided to create a new board game. He looked at many games already out there.
He noticed games usually fit into three types:
Butts wanted to make a game that used both luck and skill. He decided to mix ideas from anagrams and crossword puzzles. Crossword puzzles were very popular back then.
Players would pick seven letter tiles from a pile. Then, they would try to make words using those letters.
The Secret to Scrabble Letters
A big part of the game's design was how Alfred studied the English language. He looked at the front page of The New York Times. He counted how often each letter of the alphabet was used.
He used this information to decide how many of each letter tile to put in the game. For example, he only included four "S" tiles. He did this so that making words plural wouldn't make the game too easy.
From "Lexiko" to "Scrabble"
Alfred first called his game "Lexiko". He later changed the name to "Criss Cross Words". He then started looking for someone to buy his game idea.
At first, many game makers said no. But Alfred didn't give up. Eventually, he sold the rights to a businessman named James Brunot. James loved games and made a few small changes to the design. He then gave the game its famous name: "Scrabble".
Scrabble Becomes Popular
In 1948, the game got its official trademark. James Brunot and his wife turned an old schoolhouse into a Scrabble factory. This was in Dodgingtown, Connecticut.
In 1949, they made 2,400 game sets. They even lost money that year. But the game slowly became more popular. Orders from the big department store Macy's helped a lot.
By 1952, the Brunots couldn't make enough games to meet the demand. They asked a larger game company, Selchow and Righter, to help. This company started to make and sell Scrabble.
Today, over 150 million Scrabble sets have been sold around the world. In North America alone, between one and two million sets are sold every year.
Alfred's Other Game
Alfred Butts later invented another game. It was simply called Alfreds [sic] Other Game. It was released in 1985 by Selchow and Righter. However, this game never became as successful as Scrabble.
