Crossword Puzzle History

By the 1930s crossword puzzles were featured in almost every American newspaper. Notably, the snobbish New York Times was one of the last newspapers in the U.S. to accede to the new craze. Because of competition from other newspapers, in 1930 it could hold out no longer. It began publishing its own line of puzzles, initiating a publishing tradition which has lasted to the present day. Ironically, in the ensuing years the New York Times not only published its own line of puzzles, it became the virtual arbiter of what crossword puzzles should and should not be. With its famously difficult Sunday puzzle, it became a bastion—perhaps the bastion—of crossword innovation and publication. Many puzzle innovations and de facto standards sprang out of its feature.

Publication in U.S. newspapers had contributed greatly to the public's awareness of the game and to its subsequent spread in popularity. For several years, news of the U.S. crossword only trickled back across the Atlantic. The n, in 1922 the British publication Pearson's Magazine became the first there to publish a crossword puzzle. As in the U.S., newspaper publication in Britain opened the door. Interest in the puzzle grew gradually, and it was not until the 1930s that the crossword may be said to have gained a foothold in Europe.

Although crosswords in the form of a word square originated in England in the 19th century, interest in the crossword faded there until it was revived in the 1920s and 1930s, probably in part because of events in America. In the U.S., exposure in newspapers had made a difference to the crossword's success. Had crosswords of any kind been printed in British newspapers in the 19th century, perhaps they might have become popular there first.

Wynne's first puzzle in the New York World changed history. Not only was Wynne's puzzle the first modern crossword known to be published anywhere, it was the first crossword of any kind to be published in a newspaper, where publication mattered most. Since crosswords had faded in Britain long before Wynne's puzzle appeared, the appearance of Wynne's puzzle in an American newspaper in the 20th century may be said to have marked both the crossword puzzle's birth and its rebirth.

• Explore the history of crossword puzzles further at the Wikipedia web site page called Crossword History: click here.