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Ouija Board History - Where did they come from?
There are many theories and conjectures on Ouija board history and how it began. An old name for Ouija board is "talking boards." The Ouija board may have originated from the fabled Moroccan city Ouija also spelled Oujida or Oudjda.
The planchette (held in both hands on the board) was named after the French medium M. Planchette. Adolphus Theodore Wagner received the first patent for the board in London, England in 1854. It was then called a "psychograph" and was supposed to read the minds of people with "nervous energy."
The Ouija board was first introduced in the United States in 1890 as a parlor game sold in novelty shops. E.C. Reiche, Elijah Bond, and Charles Kennard created a new design. They spread the letters of the alphanumeric in twin arcs across the middle of the board. Below the letters were the numbers one to ten. In the corners were Yes and No.
Kennard called the new board Ouija - supposedly after the Egyptian word for good luck. However Ouija is not the Egyptian word for good luck. Since the board repeatedly told Kennard that Ouija was the Egyptian word, the name stayed. Kennard, who lost the company, was taken over by his former foreman William Fuld. In 1892, he reinvented the history of Ouija Boards. He claimed he invented the Ouija Board and the name Ouija was a fusion of the French word "oui" for yes, and the German "ja" for yes.
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