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The E-Sylum: Volume 19, Number 4, January 24, 2016, Article 22

MORE ON LOTTERIES IN COLONIAL AMERICA

1790 Massachusetts lottery ticket

Ron Ward writes:

Mathew Wittmann should be congratulated for his excellent article, “Lottery Mania in Colonial America”. I was glad to see it reprinted in The E-Sylum. Unfortunately, there is no modern publication covering the colonial period.

There is one further publication of interest: “Colonial Lotteries in America” by Georgette Heeney, 69 pp., (1910) [Reprint from the collections of the University of California Libraries]. This was a Master of Letters Thesis submitted by Ms. Heeney to the Berkeley Faculty of the University of California. It gives a brief history of British lotteries and then goes into the American Colonial lotteries giving details such as the preparation of various tickets and the differentiation of official and private lotteries. Unfortunately, there are no illustrations. I purchased a copy from Amazon.com.

Well, more modern than the 1910 book is my favorite, Fortune's Merry Wheel: The Lottery in America by John Samuel Ezell, published 1960. Here are some additional works in library:

Report of a Committee Appointed to Investigate the Evils of Lotteries In the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 1831

Curiosities of the Old Lottery by Henry W. Brooks, 1886

The United States Lottery by Lucius Wilmerding, Jr., in The New-York Historical Society Quarterly, January 1963

The Early Lotteries of New Jersey by Harry B. Weiss and Grace M. Weiss, 1966

Pre-Civil War Baltimore Lotteries by Russ Sear, no date

By Chance A Winner: The History of Lotteries by George Sullivan, 1972

One Hundred Years of American Lottery Tickets 1744-1844, a fixed price list (Second Printing, 1988)

I'm sure there are more I haven't acquired yet. This is a fascinating area of Americana made topical by the recent record-breaking Powerball jackpot. I didn't win, but you bet I had a couple tickets! -Editor

To read the complete article, see:
LOTTERIES IN COLONIAL AMERICA (www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v19n03a16.html)

Wayne Homren, Editor

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