Mid-Century Crossword Clues
There’s a cute little book of puzzles, The New York Times Crossword Puzzles of the 1950’s. It includes the first puzzle the paper ever published. The puzzles… fifty of them… They are… hard! So many words and especially names that we just don’t use that much anymore. These are some of the words that I got stuck on. It may not be the word itself that was challenging - sometimes it was the clue or reference. Click through to read about their clues and a little bit of background - a hodgepodge of usage, etymology and biography.
Want to read more on crossword puzzles and their history?
The Crossword Century: 100 Years of Witty Wordplay, Ingenious Puzzles, and Linguistic Mischief by Alan Connor
Crossworld: One Man's Journey into America's Crossword Obsession by Marc Romano
On To The Words!
January 7th, 1953
Edited by Margaret Farrar