"The capitulation of the N.Y. Times to the daily crossword puzzle is...
an event for which we have been able to figure out no logical motivation,
unless it is that the Times was embarrassed at sharing solely with the
Daily Worker, among the local papers, the distinction of not having such
a frivolous feature. The Times has had puzzles on Sunday, of course.
We have often wondered what sort of people editors believe solvers
of their daily crosswords to be, aside from commuters. The two papers,
that, with the Times are most favored by commuters have always had
set spots for their puzzles, the World Telegram and Sun on a comics page
and the Herald Tribune either beneath its comics or beneath notices
of auction sales -- implicit evidence of a feeling on the part of their
editors that puzzles appeal in the main to people who are childlike
or have special interests in buying used tiaras or tugboats."
~New Yorker comment, 9/30/1950
(spoiler alert: New Yorker finally capitulates in 2018 and publishes crosswords)
1951
The Daughter of Time by Josephine Teybook;
"Well, I suppose it is no use suggesting jig-saws to someone in your position.
How about cross-words. I could get you a book of them, if you like."
"God forbid."
"You could invent them, of course. I have heard that is more fun than solving them."
"Perhaps. But a dictionary weighs several pounds.
Besides, I always did hate looking up something in a reference book."
Scrabble History; In the early 1950s, as legend has it,... the president of Macy's discovered the game on vacation and ordered some for his store.
Within a year, everyone 'had to have one' to the point that Scrabble games
were being rationed to stores around the country. In 1952, the Brunots
realized they could no longer make the games fast enough to meet the growing interest.
They licensed Long Island-based Selchow & Righter Company, a well-known game manufacturer
founded in 1867, to market and distribute the games in the United States and Canada.
1954
"Princess Margaret of England... won a crossword contest in Country Life magazine.
At first the editors thought the entry was a hoax. A call to Buckingham Palace, though,
confirmed that the princess had indeed submitted the solution." ~NYT Puzzle Mania, p.11, 12/17/2017
"A minister in the India Parliament introduced a bill to... ban crossword competitions
He declared before a cheering house: 'This menace has come to the forefront
and has assumed really appalling proportions.'" ~NYT Puzzle Mania, p.11, 12/17/2017
The Decades That Invented the Future: Part 6: 1950s Transistorized Computer; Sci-Fi Cinema, Rock&Roll; Spy Satellites; Hockey Mask; Hovercraft; Digital Photograph;
Tennis for Two (videogame); DNA; Black Box; Fidel Castro; Catalyzed Plastics; ICEE Machine; Wired; 11/22/2012
1950