PAST IS PROLOGUE

The Surprising History of Crossword Puzzles

A short history of that infamous homewrecker, the Crossword Puzzle

Via Nieman Lab: A time before Wordle: Newspapers used to hate word puzzles

If Wardle is the Wardle of the Wordle, then Wynne was the Wardle of The World. Put less stupidly, Arthur Wynne’s 1913 “Word-Cross” puzzle for Joseph Pulitzer’s World newspaper was not the first such puzzle, but it was the first to be laid out in a recognizable proto-crossword format, and the first to be called “crossword” (the title would be reversed and the hyphen removed in later editions). And like the Wordle, a central feature of Wynne’s crossword puzzles from the very beginning seems to have been a social one. There was a viral element to these early newspaper word games, such that readers began quickly to compile their own crosswords and send them in, with some eventually appearing in print under a byline from the growing crossword community. “The puzzle editor has kindly figured out that the present supply will last until the second week in December, 2100,” Wynne bemusedly announced to his submitters in 1915.¹

A recreation of the first ever “Word-Cross” puzzle by Arthur Wynne from December 21, 1913

Like many things that satisfy the morally dangerous trifecta of “fun,” “new,” and “popular,”…