A sensation from Shanghai
Americans and Britons living in Shanghai had learned mahjong in the 1910s. Around 1920 entrepreneurs began exporting sets to the United States, and by 1922 the game had become a national fad. Sets sold in department stores, from cheap paper versions to elaborate boxed bone-and-bamboo sets; demand was so high that Chinese workshops struggled to keep up.
Abercrombie & Fitch, then a sporting-goods store, was among the retailers selling large numbers of sets. Newspapers ran columns explaining the rules, and mahjong parties became fashionable.
A cultural moment
The craze brought Chinese-themed costumes, decorations and parties into American homes, often reflecting the era's exotic stereotypes. Popular songs joined in — "Since Ma Is Playing Mah Jong" was recorded by Eddie Cantor in 1924 — and cartoons poked fun at husbands neglected for the tile table.
The game also became associated with modern women: middle-class women played afternoon games, formed clubs and wrote to newspapers asking rules questions.
Too many rules
One reason the fad faded was confusion. Competing manufacturers published competing rule books, many of them adding scoring complications to differentiate their product. Players who learned from one book found themselves disagreeing with friends who used another. By the late 1920s the craze had cooled.
That confusion would later motivate the founding of the National Mah Jongg League in 1937 to set a single American standard.
What remained
The game did not disappear. Groups of devoted players, particularly in Jewish communities in New York and other cities, continued playing through the 1930s and beyond. Their adaptations — including the card of hands and, later, jokers — grew into American Mah Jongg, now one of the major world styles.
