In Roman times, lotteries were festive, lavish affairs often held to bestow gifts upon banquet guests. To increase the suspense, guests sometimes had an equal chance of winning either a gold vase or six flies (Ezell, p. 2).
When some of the first colonists settled in America during the early 1600s, they brought with them from England the well-established lottery custom. The early American lotteries had many functions: they were held to entertain, to make a profit, to sell land, and to raise money for churches, schools, and new homes. But none was ever held for such a grim and brutal purpose as the lottery portrayed in Jackson's story. In real life, for example, the Massachusetts Land Lottery of 1786 disposed of fifty townships. The President and Fellows of Harvard College bought twenty tickets and subsequently won 2,720 acres of undeveloped land in the Maine region (Ezell, p. 75).
Because of their association with gambling, betting, and other activities thought to be immoral, lotteries became illegal in the United States in 1894.
The lottery practice continued to be unlawful in America during the time in which Jackson set her story. Not until the early 1960s would American lotteries be reestablished as legal, and often state-sponsored, events.
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