William Fuld (July 24, 1870 – February 24, 1927) was an American businessman, inventor, and entrepreneur from Baltimore, Maryland who is best known for his marketing and manufacture of Ouija boards from the 1890s through the 1920s.
Though Fuld never claimed to have invented the Ouija board, intense media coverage in the 1930s credited him with it.
Fuld also worked as a varnisher which led to his job as foreman at the Kennard Novelty Co. which was founded on October 30, 1890, the same year that Elijah Bond filed the first patent for a “talking board”.
A crafty businessman, Fuld sued companies whose talking boards infringed on his trademarks or patents.
In order to combat the growing competition for other talking board manufacturers, Fuld knew that if he himself made a cheaper version of his own product he would get more business.
In 1919, he introduced the "Mystifying Oracle", an exact replica of his Ouija board that sold for less money.
On February 24, 1927, Fuld climbed to the roof of his three-story factory to supervise the installation of a flagpole.