Under the name "The Checkered Game of Life" the game looked vastly different and its tone wasn't quite as cheery. For starters, there isn't much in the way of bright colors. Oh, there's also the "RUIN" square on the far right and just to the bottom-left of that? SUICIDE. Yep! Originally you could kill yourself in the game. There's also POVERTY and DISGRACE.
Milton Bradley himself had quite a bit of hardship going on in his life when he designed the game. He was originally a lithographer who was making a decent living on selling images of Abraham Lincoln. Unfortunately, after a letter was sent to Lincoln by a young girl suggesting that he grow a beard; he took that suggestion to heart and indeed grew one rendering thousands of Bradley's images obsolete. The demand for them dropped significantly.
Factoring that in with the impending Civil War, and it's understandable that Bradley's game wasn't going to be the cheeriest ever invented. But he did well with it, the game selling over 45,000 copies in its first year. It saved him from financial ruin and helped lay the foundation for a gaming empire that's still with us today.
