Ulyses S. Grant carried a marble game into the battlefield. It was a board  
game that looked like a cut-down version of Chinese checkers, but played with  
handmade swirl marbles. Adults of all ages would have played such a game.
 
Also, British adults take marble playing as serious as darts. There are  
accounts of men of all ages playing marbles outside pubs and even in specially  
prepared clay rings for gambling and sport. 
 
Then there is the famous Blue Marble, which is a tournament played  somewhere 
in the eastern half of the United States. People in different age  classes 
play this like the world series of marbles. I have seen features that  are 
prepared clay "tables" that are elevated to enable the player to comfortably  
shoot. Marble players who make it to this class are just as amazing as pool  
sharks. I think it has been televised on the Discovery Channel. Most of those  
players are young boys.
 
In general, however, marble playing has been a sport of younger children.  In 
1950s California, I only observed boys between the ages of 5 and 14 playing.  
I have no doubt girls got into the game in some parts of America, more likely 
 before that. 
 
When I lectured showing slides of marbles and talked about the game  people 
of both genders were in the room. When the lights came on from those  lectures, 
there was not a dry eye in the room and that included the women. I  interpret 
this to mean women who played in the 1920s and 1930s recognized their  old 
favorite marbles. 
 
How widespread the practice of female marble playing was in the past is  
anyone's guess. Actually, I would propose that girls played marbles as much as  
boys until about World War II, when parents began restricting girls to what they 
 considered appropriate female games. This is the same time various Christian 
 religious sects declared marble playing a form of gambling and urged  
parents not to allow their children to sin. I have to ponder what trigger  mechanism 
in Society causes adults to get overly authoritative in what their  children 
do for amusement? Evangelism probably terminated a lot of adult pub  playing 
too.
 
Ron May
Legacy 106, Inc.