CROSSWORDS: 1920s

Highlights | Craze | 1921 | 1922 | 1923 | 1924 | 1925 | 1926 | 1929 | References


Highlights

  • Many "firsts" for crosswords in publications and culture. Much debate about fads and obsessions.
  • 1921: Margaret Farrar: crossword editor at New York World; first crossword dictionary
  • longest1922: first UK magazine with crossword: Pearson's
  • 1924: The Cross Word Puzzle Book
    -- 1st book by Simon & Schuster.
    "This odd-looking book with a pencil attached to it"
  • UK newspaper Daily Express
  • judge
    Judge Magazine, 11/15/1924
    Public domain,
    via Wikimedia Commons

    crossword rules, e.g., rotational symmetry; interlocking;
    ~1/6 black squares; word choice; clue conventions

  • New York Herald-Tribune's National All Comers Cross Word Puzzle Tournament
  • song: "Crossword Mama You Puzzle Me (But Papa's Gonna Figure You Out)"
  • 1925: cryptic crossword invented in UK
  • musical revue: "Puzzles of 1925"
  • animated short Disney film: "Alice Solves the Puzzle"
  • mystery story: "The Fascinating Problem of Uncle Meleager's Will"
  • 1926: book: "The Truth About George" by PG Wodehouse
A poem called Flies!
A poem called “Flies!”, with accompanying illustration,
from a November, 1925 issue of Our Home magazine
Public domain from Wikimedia Commons

Crossword Craze & Quotes

  • "Crossword puzzles became a way of life in the 1920s...
  • "Another reason for the extraordinary success of crossword puzzles...
  • "The Pennsylvania Railroad...
  • "Pickpockets in hotel lobbies,...
  • "A New York man was arrested because...
  • "The working of cross-word puzzles is...
  • The influence on the American vocabulary was audible.
    "Anybody you met on the street...
  • In the 1920s, as now, there were 2 schools of puzzle solution fans:...
  • A humorous squib in The Boston Globe has a wife ordering her husband...
  • "The latest craze to strike libraries is the crossword puzzle...
  • "Thoughtful working of cross word puzzles can not fail to...
  • Judge Magazine Cover (10 Jan 1925)
    Judge Magazine Cover (10 Jan 1925)
    Public domain
    from Wikimedia Commons

    "Some folks were driven over the edge by the craze...

  • "Judging from the number of solvers in the subway...
  • Range of opinions about crossword longevity:...
  • "Yale University defeated Harvard in the first-ever...
  • The main interest among fans in the 1920s was in the puzzle as
    an aid to language...
  • "A New York Telephone Co. employee shot his...
  • Popular interest in the 1920s is shown by aids which were marketed ...
  • "A woman who has small children...
  • These two sources refer to many 1920s newspaper articles (most included below):
    The New York Times hated crossword puzzles before it embraced them 2/15/2022
    Crosswords: the meow meow of the 1920s Idling workers, distracted housewives and a decline
    in reading: Alan Connor looks at the great crossword panic of the 1920s; Guard; 12/15/2011
  • The Cross-Word Puzzles Bridegroom New Britain (CT) Herald, p. 10; 7/18/1924
  • Crossworditis Widow Has Her Court Innings Kenosha (WI) News. p. 15; 11/7/1924
  • madnessA Familiar Form of Madness
    "Latest of the problems presented for solution by psychologists interested in the mental peculiarities
    of mobs and crowds as distinguished from individuals is created by what is well called the craze over
    cross-word puzzles... All ages, both sexes, highbrows and lowbrows, at all times and in all places,
    even in restaurants and in subways, pore over the diagrams... [A] sinful waste in the utterly futile
    finding of words the letters of which will fit into a prearranged pattern, more or less complex.
    This is not a game at all, and it hardly can be called a sport... [solvers] get nothing out of it
    except a primitive form of mental exercise, and success or failure in any given attempt
    is equally irrelevant to mental development." NYT p. 18; 11/17/1924
  • Ban Cross-Word Puzzles at [Univ. of] Michigan Portsmouth (OH) Daily Times, p. 1; 12/4/1924
  • Crossword Mania Breaks Up Homes
    Neglected Cleveland Wives Said to Plan Divorces from Stricken Husbands;
    A manager of one legal-aid association claimed to have received an average of
    "ten letters a day from wives who have to remain at home these evenings just
    because their husbands are suffering from 'crossword puzzleitis.'" NYT p. 8; 12/11/1924
  • Cross-Word Puzzles: Offices, Hospitals, Insomnia Sunday Star (Wash. DC); Gravure section; 12/21/1924
  • Crossword Puzzle Causes Hectic Night Modesto (CA) Bee, p. 6; 12/16/1924
  • Cross-Word Puzzle Craze Held Beneficial by Editors Sunday Star (Wash. DC), p. 6; 12/18/1924
  • Cross-Word Headache Booms Optical Trade
    New Strain on Eyes Reveals Defects in Vision, as Did the Early Motion Pictures; NYT p. 20; 12/22/1924
  • Cross-Word Puzzles: an Enslaved America
    "[The crossword] has grown from the pastime of a few ingenious idlers into a national institution:
    a menace because it is making devastating inroads on the working hours of every rank of society...
    [people were seen] cudgeling their brains for a four-letter word meaning 'molten rock' or a
    six-letter word meaning 'idler,' or what not: in trains and trams, or omnibuses, in subways,
    in private offices and counting-rooms, in factories and homes, and even -- although as yet rarely
    -- with hymnals for camouflage, in church... Pernicious puzzles have been known to break up homes.
    The solution of one concerned policeman was to enforce on addicts a ration of 3 puzzles a day,
    with 10 days' imprisonment if a 4th was attempted... Five million man-hours were being lost every
    day as workers forgot their duty to contribute to the gross national product, lost in the pure
    pleasure of finding synonyms." London Times (12/9/1924) and Tamworth Herald (12/27/1924)
  • Decreased demand: library "Crossword puzzles and the radio have been given as the reason for a marked
    decline during the recent months in the demand for books at the Ottawa Public Library" Reuters; 1924
  • Decreased demand: movies The picture theatres are also complaining that cross-words keep people at home.
    They get immersed in a problem and forget all about Gloria Swanson, Lilian Gish, and the other stars of the
    film constellation; Nottingham Evening Post
  • Cross-Word Puzzles Clog the Wheels of Justice NYT p. 27; 1/6/1925
  • Cross-Word Puzzles Causes More Trouble (assault); Marion (IL) Evening Post, p. 1; 1/7/1925
  • Crossword Puzzle Cause of Trouble (late to meeting); Huntsville (AL) Times, p. 5; 1/11/1925
  • Queen Mary, wife of King George V of England, Cross-Word Puzzle Fan Boston Globe; 1/12/1925
  • Crossword Puzzles Steal Memory of Excessive Addict Sacramento (CA) Star, p. 1; 1/28/1925
  • harmSees Harm, Not Education "Fortunately, the question of whether the puzzles are beneficial
    or harmful is dying out fast and in a few months it will be forgotten." NYT p. 20; 3/10/1925
  • The Cross-Word Puzzle Fad NYT p. 18; 3/16/1925
  • Cross-Worditis Gets Official Attention from Health Bureau Tampa (FL) Times, p. 7; 3/11/1925
  • Crossword Murder Man, Crazed by Them, Slays Wife and Wounds Self; Cincinnati (OH) Post, p. 15; 12/18/1925
  • The cross-word puzzle mania is becoming more hectic even than craze for 'put and take'
    Nottingham Evening Post; 1925
  • The damage caused to dictionaries in the library: Wimbledon, Willesden 1925
  • Dulwich Library starts blacking out crosswords' white squares "with a heavy pencil,
    to prevent any one person from keeping a newspaper for more than a reasonable length of time"
  • Competition One of the most marked characteristics of this present century is the competition fever,
    which holds a big proportion of the population under its allurement. The root of the whole problem
    can be found in mankind's instinctive desire "to get something for nothing." It is not surprising, therefore,
    to find that many ingenious devices have been used to attract the attention of the public in this respect,
    and the latest method is known as the cross-word puzzle; Western Times
  • Competition "This week us 'ad a bit of talk about those yer crossword puzzles as they calls 'm.
    I duunaw that I knaws rightly what they is, 'cause seems to me they'm mostly for the bettermost people
    what got time to spare... I got a [daughter] only her don't ask me no questions. Her's fiddling about
    most all the week about what don't seem to be no use to nobody. Her send in to the competitions [but]
    her never won nothing yet, and I don't s'pose her's ever likely to." Western Times: Village Philosophy column
  • Wild Hyacinth "This loss to productive activity of far more time than is lost by labor strikes.
    The cross-word puzzle threatens to be the wild hyacinth of American industry."
  • Is It the Cause? Crossword Puzzles Blamed headmasters decry the "laziest occupation" and an "unsociable habit"
  • Ban on Cross-Words libraries limit access to dictionaries within reading rooms
  • In Abuse of the Cross-Word Puzzle
  • Crosswords "For Nerves" one British wife took her husband to court for staying in bed until 11 am doing crosswords
  • Zoo keepers "Correspondents [are] unabashed over requests for aid in solving 'cross-word' puzzles,
    and the Zoo at least will be relieved when a new hobby takes the place of the current one.
    What is a word three letters meaning a female swan? What is a female kangaroo, or a fragile
    creature in six letters ending in TO?" Nottingham Evening Post
  • Putnam's French cross-word puzzle book
    Putnam's French cross-word puzzle book, 1925
    Public domain from Wikimedia Commons

    Theater Mr. Matheson Lang missed his entrance in the Inquisition scene through becoming absorbed in a puzzle.
    This caused him much chagrin, for he is extremely conscientious as regards his stage work. All the "Wandering Jew"
    company at the New Theatre are, like their chief, interested in cross-word puzzles

  • Grocery A girl asked a busy grocer to name the different brands of flour he kept. When he had done so,
    expecting a sale, she said she didn't want to buy any. She just thought one of the names might fit into a cross-word puzzle
    she was doing. The cross-word craze has been described as a disease. For which the scientific name might be "cluemonia."
  • Huntley and Palmers: "Cross-word" Cream Biscuit
    Eating our own words is a familiar phrase. Eating cross-words is a new pastime, but a pleasant one
    since Messrs. Huntley and Palmers, Ltd. have put on the market their "Cross-word" Cream Biscuit,
    so named because of its design. Simultaneously with arrival of the new biscuit Messrs. Huntley and Palmers
    have inaugurated a cross-word competition in which prizes are offered to the extent of £1,000
  • "By 1927, a wide-spread neurosis began to be evident, faintly signalled,
    like a nervous beating of the feet, by the popularity of cross-word puzzles." ~F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • "The cross-word puzzle, it would seem, has gone the way of all fads."
    ~NYT: 12/29/1929, p.27; "All About the Insidious Game of Anagrams"

1921

  • Margaret (Petherbridge) Farrar's "career in crossword puzzles began at the New York World in 1921.
    She had been hired as the secretary to the editor of the Sunday edition of the New York World;
    he eventually assigned her to assist crossword inventor Arthur Wynne, who was overloaded
    with reader submissions of puzzles -- and with complaints about flawed puzzles.
    Petherbridge had never solved a puzzle herself and therefore chose puzzles to be printed
    without testing them, until fellow World employee Franklin Pierce Adams criticized her for it;
    in response, she tried the puzzles, and discovered to her dismay that some of them were unsolvable.
    She subsequently described her reaction as '(taking) an oath to edit the crosswords to the essence
    of perfection;' her puzzles eventually became more popular than Wynne's."
    (spoiler alerts: 1924:Simon&Schuster; 1941: 1st NYT editor)
  • Colonel H.W. Hill publishes the first "Quickway" Crossword Dictionary.

briggs bridegroom1922

  • Pearson's [1st UK magazine w/ crossword]
  • Morning Oregonian and other newspapers published a comic strip by Clare Briggs
    entitled "Movie of a Man Doing the Cross-Word Puzzle"; with an enthusiast muttering
    "87 across 'Northern Sea Bird'!!??!?!!? Hm-m-m starts with an 'M', second letter is 'U'...
    I'll look up all the words starting with an 'M-U...' mus-musi-mur-murd--Hot Dog! Here 'tis! Murre!"
  • at right: "Cross-word Puzzler's Bridegroom"; Clare Briggs; Morning Oregonian; 7/24/1924

1923

  • Margaret Petherbridge revises the cluing system for crosswords, sorting them into
    “Horizontal” and “Vertical” clues by number. (It wouldn’t be until the 1940s that
    the more familiar “Across” and “Down” terminology became the norm.)
Cross word puzzle book. 1st series. (N.Y.)

Cross word puzzle book. 1st series. (N.Y.)
Public domain from Wikimedia Commons

1924

  • Simon & Schuster found a company to publish The Cross Word Puzzle Book
    which came with a pencil and eraser; now, 258+ vols. According to legend,
    a young Columbia University graduate named Richard L. Simon went to dinner at his Aunt Wixie's house.
    A NY World subscriber and a cross-word devotee, she asked where she could buy a book of crossword
    puzzles for her daughter. Simon, who was trying to break into the publishing business with college chum
    M. Lincoln Schuster, told her there was no such book -- and then hit on the idea of publishing one himself.
    The next day, he and Schuster went to the World's offices and made a deal with the paper's crossword
    puzzle editors. They would pick the newspaper's best crossword puzzles and pay $25 apiece for the rights
    to publish them in a book. To avoid the risk of beginning their corporate existence with a flop, they
    brought out the book under an alias -- the Plaza Publishing Company (named after their telephone exchange).
  • The first run of 3,600 copies (@ $1.35) sold out quickly and the company
    ran additional printings (@ $0.15). The book eventually sold more than 100,000 copies,
    perhaps spurred on by groups like the Amateur Cross Word Puzzle League of America,
    oregonian startitself a creation of marketing-savvy Simon & Schuster.
  • Margaret Farrar compiled two crossword puzzle books a year for Simon & Schuster;
    she was working on the 134th volume upon her death.
  • "The cross word solver becomes a collector, a connoisseur of words.
    They lose, to him, their mundane purpose of a suitable medium for the exchange of thoughts,
    and take on an esoteric significance, akin to the appeal of slip-ware to the collector of pottery
    or the three-cornered Mauritius to the philatelist. He and Hamlet are one. 'Words, words, words'
    -- except that he has the advantage of the melancholy one. Hamlet's words ran in decorous file,
    one after the other; the solver's twine and interwine, each leading to others, resulting in a harmonious
    whole unapproached by any except the masterpieces of classic literature." ~F. Gregory Hartswick,
    introduction to the first edition of Simon and Schuster's Cross Word Puzzle Book
  • Penguin Random House to Buy Simon & Schuster
    ViacomCBS agreed to sell the 96-year-old company in a deal that potentially creates a megapublisher; NYT; 11/25/2020
  • oregonian grid"The fans they chew their pencils
    The fans they beat their wives
    They look up words for extinct birds
    They lead such puzzling lives" ~Gelett Burgess, author of the “Purple Cow”
  • Crossword Mama You Puzzle Me (But Papa's Gonna Figure You Out)
    Papalia & His Orchestra; (song) (audio: 2:32);
    Will Shortz on NPR On the Media: Life Squared (interview; excerpts; 4:07-4:40; 9:20-12:54), 4/6/2006;
    MayasMix @ 13:24; YouTube 2:41; lyrics:
    "You treat me like an orphan in a storm / Crossword books won't keep my tootsies warm.
    Crossword Mama, you puzzle me / But Papa's gonna figure you out.
    Washington, he crossed the Delaware / Columbus crossed the ocean blue
    If there's any more crossing to be done / Papa's gonna double-cross you..."
  • Cross-word puzzle blues (song) (audio; 2:37)
  • oregonian cluesVladimir Nabokov "thought in crosswords", publishing the first Russian puzzle in Berlin
  • Amateur Cross Word Puzzle League of America began the process of standardizing
    the appearance of crosswords as early as 1924, instituting rules such as “all over interlock,”
    which meant that no part of the grid could be completely cut off by the black squares;
    only one-sixth of the squares could be black; and the grid design had to be symmetrical
    (rotational symmetry). Other changes, like outlawing two-letter words, came later.
    Why are crossword puzzles symmetrical?
  • Daily Express [1st UK newspaper w/ crossword]
  • New York Herald-Tribune publishes first daily crossword?
  • oregonian solTodd Gross on New York Herald-Tribune Crosswords 12/13/2013
  • NYT publisher Arthur Hays Sulzberger is said to have loved crosswords
    almost as much as he hated having to buy copies of the rival New York Herald-Tribune
    in order to get them (since NYT wouldn't publish any)
  • Ruth Franc Von Phul won the New York Herald-Tribune's National All Comers
    Cross Word Puzzle Tournament the age of 20; obituary NYT; 4/1/1986
  • Crossword Champ: Ruth von Phul NYT; 5/1/2020
  • The Crossword Puzzle: Where'd The Women Go? 8/21/2013
dorgan
In this installment of Tad Dorgan's Indoor Sports,
the janitor at a barber shop listens to the barbers
attempting to solve a crossword puzzle,
and laughs because they are Italian immigrants
struggling with a language barrier.
by Tad Dorgan, Public domain,
via Wikimedia Commons

1925

  • "Young people who want to increase their vocabulary should not deceive
    themselves with crosswords. Let them read Shakespeare." ~Arthur Brisbane
  • Puzzles of 1925 (musical revue); opens 2/2/1925;
    crossword sanitarium scene: solvers who had lost their minds.
    "Since Ma's Gone Crazy Over Cross Word Puzzles" (lyrics):
    "The house has gone to ruin / Since all that Mother's doin' /
    Is putting letters in the little squares /
    We live on canned tomatoes / And old cold boiled potatoes
    No wonder when he comes home / Father swears"
  • I've Got the Crossword Puzzle Blues (song)
    by D. J. Michaud and Marguerite A. Bruce;
    performed by jazz clarinettist Bob Fuller;
    "I'm feeling awfully down, and cross.
    I spend all day solving, but I still don't have a clue"
  • ambrose
    Old age versus the cross word puzzle.
    They don't come too hard for Ambrose Hines,
    D.C., who just celebrated his one hundredth (...)
    "Bring on the hard ones," says Mr. Hines.
    "I've dictionaries, time and pencils necessary."
    by Harris & Ewing, photographer,
    Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

    100-year old Ambrose Hines solving a puzzle in 1925 [on right]

  • Forgotten book offers clues to the puzzling history of the crossword
    The Cross Word Puzzle Book, publishers Hodder and Stoughton;
    "This is not a toy! It is just possible you may pick up this
    book thinking of it as a present for the younger children.
    Will you please do us one favour -- in the name of humanity?
    Refrain, in a word. Think twice. Keep the book from younger hands,
    as cross words are not for tender minds"; 10/22/2021
  • That Guiltiest Feeling cartoon; Clare Briggs; cross word craze, covering earth
  • punch doctor
    A crossword fanatic ringing up a doctor in the middle
    of the night to find the answer to a clue.
    by D.L. Ghilchilp, CC BY 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
    Doctor (rung up at 2am): "Yes, Dr. Brown speaking. What is it?"
    Voice: "I want the name of a bodily disorder of seven letters,
    of which the second letter must be 'N'."

    A Punch cartoon about "The Cross-Word Mania" [on right]

  • cryptic crossword invented.
    "There is something about the British mind-set...
  • Have a go at the very first Sunday (UK) Times crossword [1/11/1925] Times; 3/27/2022
  • Cross-Words (Between Sweetie and Me) by Little Ramblers; (song; 3:48);
    "Sorrow has torn at my heart strings / I wonder who is to blame
    My sweetie never has time for me / She's deep in love with a game
    Crosswords have made me blue as can be, / Cross, crosswords between my sweetie and me,
    She's been puzzling, don't seem to care / Whether I'm near her or taking the air
    I'm jealous. How can I win sympathy? I'm hoping she'll soon need L-O-V-E.
    Every night in our little home / We sit together, but I'm all alone.
    She's so contrary / Her old dictionary and crosswords are sweeter than me."
  • even more songs: Cross word papa you sure' do puzzle me; by Josie Miles;
    Cross-word puzzle of love; Cross words; Crosspuzz;
    Crossword (The) puzzle glide; Do you do cross-word puzzles;
    I'm a cross word puzzle fan; My cross-word puzzle girl;
    They're doing cross word puzzles now; Your cross-words are making me blue
  • alice
    by Walt Disney, Public domain,
    via Wikimedia Commons

    Alice Solves the Puzzle animated short Disney film; features "Bootleg Pete"
    (later Peg Leg Pete) a bear-like creature who collected crossword puzzles
    and tries to steal a rare and valuable one from Alice.
    [on right]

  • Felix All Puzzled Felix the Cat cartoon; video: 2:39; 1/15/1925
    Felix is hungry, but his owner won’t feed him until he finishes his crossword puzzle.
    And he’s fixated on the clue that will complete the puzzle,
    “Vertical. Found chiefly in Russia.”
  • Cross Word Cal
    Ernie Bushmiller, “Cross Word Cal”, from Sunday New York World, 1925.
    Public domain from Wikimedia Commons

    Ernie Bushmiller's comic strip “Red Magic":
    adventures of a mild-mannered cruciverbalist: Cross Word Cal.
    One strip features a frustrated cabbie idling for passengers
    when a pedestrian tells him to get a "checkered cab".
    Cal dives into a stack of newspapers, cuts out the crossword
    from each one, and spackles them to his car.

  • Puzzled by Crosswords
    Puzzled by Crosswords, 1925 American comedy film (still)
    with Pete Gordon (listed in the caption as Eddie Gordon),
    Hilliard Karr, and Beth Darlington,
    on page 45 of the May 2, 1925 Exhibitors Herald
    Public domain from Wikimedia Commons

    Puzzled by Crosswords (movie; comedy)

  • The Fascinating Problem of Uncle Meleager's Will
    (story; Lord Peter Wimsey) by Dorothy L. Sayers
  • Top 10 crosswords in fiction, no 2: Lord Peter Wimsey Guardian; 8/23/2012
  • The Evening World: heart-shaped, advertising content
  • "Helen Keller did Braille crosswords and recommended them to the blind."
  • NYT advertisement: "Strictly a Newspaper -- Without Comics. Without Puzzles"
Vladimir Nabokov’s butterfly crossword for Véra
Vladimir Nabokov’s butterfly crossword for Véra, 1926.
Titled “Crestos lovitxa Sirin” — an approximate transliteration
of krestlovitska [crossword] and Sirin,
Nabokov’s pseudonym after the mythological bird-women —
the puzzle is generically hybrid, both in the sense of genre and genus
Public domain from Wikimedia Commons

1926

1929

  • Mildred Jaklon spearheaded a crossword-puzzle contest for the Chicago Tribune,
    with a $5,000 prize; the contest proved so popular that the paper instituted
    a regular daily puzzle, with Jaklon as its editor
  • "The Curse of Eve" by Flora Annie Steel is about two antiheroines
    who are "making a living out of the craze for crossword puzzles."
Comic Crossword Postcard
Comic Crossword Postcard from circa 1925
Public domain from Wikimedia Commons

References