The history of American mahjong

Timeline

1. Around 1920. Mahjong arrives in the United States. Joseph Park Babcock, a Standard Oil representative in Shanghai, imports sets and writes simplified English rules that become an early American standard.
2. The early 1920s. A national craze. Sets sell in huge numbers and players add their own table rules, until the game becomes so tangled that the fad fades by the end of the decade.
3. 1935. "Official American Rules" are published, according to the Wikipedia summary of the game's history.
4. 1937. The National Mah Jongg League is founded at a meeting in New York City "to standardize the game so that all Mah Jongg players would play the same hands and rules". It starts with 32 members. My Jewish Learning describes the founders as a group of Jewish women.
5. The 1940s and 1950s. The game spreads among Jewish women's circles, passed from friend to friend and mother to daughter, and becomes a fixture of the Catskills bungalow colonies. Some sets start including jokers.
6. Around 1960–61. Jokers become a standard part of the League's game, according to Tom Sloper's research on set dating.
7. 1986. The first annual mahjong tournament at sea sets tournament standards.
8. 2005 and 2011. Standard tournament rules are codified, and Mah Jongg Master Points are introduced to rank tournament players.
9. Today. The League says it has over 350,000 members and still publishes a new card every year. Since the 2020s the game has found a younger audience, with designer sets, social clubs and lessons in many US cities.

Why the card changes every year

The League's founding idea was that everyone should play the same hands by the same rules. Publishing a new card each year keeps the game fresh, stops players from memorizing hands, and gives the League a way to adjust the game. As the League puts it, it "changes the hands and rules to add more excitement to the game."

How old sets show the history

You can roughly date an American set by its flowers and jokers. Sets from the 1920s typically have 8 flowers and no jokers. More flowers appear from the 1940s, and jokers become standard around 1960. That is why many vintage sets need joker stickers before they work for today's game: buying a vintage or used set.

The Jewish American connection

Mahjong became woven into Jewish American life through the League's founders and through decades of synagogue, sisterhood and community games. Many Jewish organizations still raise money by selling the League's card each year. Historians also point to other threads, including Jewish refugees who learned the game in Shanghai during the Second World War.

Common questions

Who invented American mahjong?

No single person. Mahjong came from China; Americans adapted it in the 1920s, and the National Mah Jongg League, founded in New York in 1937, standardized the American rules and hands.

When did American mahjong start?

Mahjong reached the US around 1920 and became a national craze in the early 1920s. The distinct American game took shape after the National Mah Jongg League was founded in 1937.

Why do so many Jewish women play mahjong?

A group of Jewish women founded the National Mah Jongg League in 1937, and the game spread through Jewish social circles in New York and beyond, including the Catskills bungalow colonies. Synagogue groups and Hadassah chapters still sell the yearly card.

When were jokers added to American mahjong?

Gradually. Some American sets had jokers in the 1940s and 1950s, and according to mahjong historian Tom Sloper the League made them standard around 1960–61. Early 1920s sets have no jokers.

Sources: National Mah Jongg League, about the League; Wikipedia: American mahjong; My Jewish Learning: Is Mah-Jongg a Jewish game?; Tom Sloper on dating sets by flowers and jokers; J. The Jewish News of Northern California on younger players.