CROSSWORDS: 1940s

Highlights | 1941 | 1942 | 1944 | 1945 | 1946 | 1948 | References


utahHighlights

  • Crosswords were banned in Paris during the Second World War,...
  • 1942: NYT (finally!)
  • 1944: D-Day -- and Crosswords
  • 1945: movie: Brief Encounter

1941

  • "We ought to proceed with the puzzle, especially...

1942

  • The Daily Telegraph ran a misleading ad, offering to donate 100 British pounds to the Minesweeping Fund
    if, under controlled conditions, anyone could solve their crossword puzzle in less than 12 minutes.
    In fact, the ad was a ploy to recruit intelligence agents to work on enemy ciphers at Bletchley Park.
  • President Franklin Roosevelt's pragmatic 'green light letter'; 1/15/1942 stated that public recreation
    (specifically baseball) supported the war effort rather than distracting from it, and therefore should be preserved.
    "The inclusion of the puzzle in the Times would therefore not be considered a trivial notion during a time
    of national peril, but instead a way to help relieve tension among the war-minded public"
    ~All the Clues That Are Fit to Solve: The New York Times Crossword Puzzle Popular & American Culture Association; 6/2019
  • "The Herald Tribune runs the best puzzle page in existence so far,
    but...
  • NYT inaugurates a puzzle page; NYT; 2/15/1942;
    "There will be two puzzles each Sunday [daily not introduced until 1950]
    -- one with a flavor of current events and general information, and one varied in theme,
    ranging from puzzles in a lighter vein, like today's smaller one, to diagramless puzzles of a general nature.
    Readers are invited to contribute their puzzles. Payment will be made for each puzzle accepted.
    The pattern of the larger puzzles should be 23 by 23 squares; the smaller 15 by 15"
  • 15 x 15: Riddle Me This .puz;
    23 x 23: Headlines and Footnotes .puz; a few example clues:
    1-Across: Famous one-eyed general (WAVELL) Gen. Sir Archibald Wavell of Britain, whose victory
    against Italy at the Battle of Sidi Barrani in Egypt in 1940 "shattered the illusion of Axis invincibility"
    ;
    117-Down: Nazi submarine base in Belgium (OSTEND);
    54-Down: Reluctant allies of Germany (FINNS);
    49-Down: Prime necessity for war production (SPEED)
    43-Down: Strait between Nova Scotia and New Breton (CANSO)
    Cape Breton, an error and the first crossword ever printed in the New York Times
  • Birth of the Crossword
    the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor ushered the US into WW II
    and the NYT Crossword into print; NYT; 12/17/2022
  • The legacy of the crossword puzzle in times of crisis NPR; 3/24/2020
  • Sunday NYT crossword later becomes popular stereotype of 'most difficult' puzzle
    -- even though NYT Fri & Sat are harder; Sun is like a hard Wed or easy Thu NYT
  • The New York Times Crossword Puzzle Still Stumps After 80 Years history; HSW; 12/19/2018
  • The Quick 10: The New York Times Crossword Puzzle trivia about NYT crossword; 8/20/2009
  • History of the NYT Crossword: Wikipedia; Barry Haldiman
  • The New York Times Celebrates 75 Years of Crosswords a brief history;
    1913: The World's First Crossword Puzzle Sparks a Craze; 'The granddaddy of crossword puzzles';
    1924: The New York Times Refuses to Join in the Fun; 'The utterly futile finding of words';
    1941: Bombing of Pearl Harbor Leads to Changed Minds; 'We ought to proceed with the puzzle';
    1942: Margaret Farrar and the First New York Times Crossword; 'Profession and passion';
    1950: The Daily Crossword Begins;
    1969: Will Weng Becomes Second Crossword Editor; 'Good company on lazy Sunday mornings';
    1977: Eugene T. Maleska, the Third Crossword Editor; 'Exactitude with puckishness';
    1978: First American Crossword Puzzle Tournament;
    1993: Will Shortz Becomes Fourth Editor of the Crossword; 'A tradition of culture and quality';
    1996: First New York Times Crossword on the Web; 'Less blood, fewer erasures';
    1998: First (and Only) Marriage Proposal in the Crossword -- Although we still get requests;
    2006: Crossword Documentary 'Wordplay' Opens; 'Crowd-pleasing entertainment and suspense';
    2008: The Wordplay Crossword Blog Begins; 'The Simpsons' Meet the Puzzle Master;
    2016: The Puzzle Mania Section Is Published; the largest New York Times Crossword: 50x50; NYT; 2/14/2017
  • Margaret Farrar: 1st NYT crossword editor, 1942-1968; "1st Lady of Crosswords" bio
  • Few Gnus: The Woman Behind the Crossword-Puzzle Craze
    Margaret Farrar is probably the most important person in the world of the crossword puzzle; New Yorker; 6/13/1959
  • "Under Margaret Farrar's direction,...
  • "Egotism, n:...
  • "Men in their forties are like the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle:...

utah1944

1945

  • Brief Encounter (movie);
    Wikipedia; Top 10 crosswords in fiction, no 10: Brief Encounter; Guardian; 5/10/2012
    Fred Jesson: Come and sit by the fire in the library and relax. You may help me with the Times crossword.
    Laura Jesson: You have the most peculiar ideas of relaxation.
    Fred Jesson: [playing the crossword puzzle] You're a poetry addict. See if you can help me over this.
    It's Keats. 'When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face / Huge cloudy symbols of a high _______.'
    Something that's seven letters.
    Laura Jesson: Romance, I think. I'm almost sure it is. 'Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance.'
    It will be in the Oxford Book of English Verse.
    Fred Jesson: No, it's right I'm sure. It fits in with 'delirium' and 'Baluchistan'.

1946

  • What do I think of the Secretary of Commerce? HAW!
    crossword puzzles these days are making subtle editorial comments by having
    the initials of congressmen spell out words describing these individuals.
    For example, the initials of the Senator from Ohio spell the word "rat." (Robert A. Taft); 8/17/1946

1948

  • The Crossword Puzzle Mystery (radio show), (April - May 1948) (13 parts); The Adventures of Superman
    e.g., Lois Lane has told cub reporter Jimmy Olsen to look in the Daily Planet from the day before yesterday
    for the crossword puzzle in search of clues in case she hasn't been heard from within twenty-four hours.

    Meanwhile, Lois is on an airplane trying to solve a crossword in order to learn where she must go.
    She finds, thanks to the clues, that she must be in a town called Moundville.

    Not long afterwards, Clark does the crossword puzzle in which Lois had done.
    Mayor Perry White, who has left Kent in charge of the newspaper, thinks that the mild mannered
    reporter has gone mad. Clark proves him wrong and finds that he must go to Moundville as Superman.

    Withers later learns that the head of syndicate in Metropolis that distributes crossword puzzles to
    newspapers like the Daily Planet is also the mastermind behind the gold heists. ~review

References

  • Wikipedia: 1940s
  • The Decades That Invented the Future: Part 5: 1940s
    Manhattan Project; George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four; Polaroid Camera; Computer Bug;
    First Videogame; Guided Missile; House Committee on Un-American Activities; Materials Rationing;
    Helicopter; Microwave; Jackie Robinson; Start of Silicon Valley; Wired; 11/15/2012
  • Paleofuture: 1940s
  • 11 Inventions from the 1940s That Still Shape Our World Today 7/23/2019