1920's Lifestyles and Social Trends | Fads and Crazes

Crossword Puzzles.

In 1924 Richard Leo Simon and Max Lincoln Schuster published their first volume, The Cross Word Puzzle Book, which was also the world's first collection of crossword puzzles. Simon and Schuster were so concerned the book might fail that they published it under a separate imprint, Plaza Publishing Company, to conceal their identities. They attached a pencil to each copy, vigorously advertised it, and turned crosswords into a nationwide rage. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad put dictionaries on their trains to help puzzle players. A headline in the Ohio State University student newspaper in February 1925 read: "Cross Word Puzzle Craze Gripping American Campuses." College newspapers published puzzles, college teams competed in puzzle contests, and the University of Kentucky offered a course in crosswords, approved by a dean who commented that