Let’s relive the history of the puzzle together: from its invention in the 18th century to its peak popularity in the United States in the 1930s. A glimpse of Western society experienced through the evolution and history of the puzzle .
As Anne Williams reports in her book Jigsaw Puzzles: An Illustrated History and Price Guide, the first jigsaw puzzle was created in England in the late 18th century by a mapmaker who cut up one of his maps and sold it as an educational game. The idea quickly caught on, and a new pastime was created: thus began the history of the jigsaw puzzle .
The first puzzles were made from sheets of hardwood , and illustrations were glued or painted onto these “boards.” The backs were marked with pencil, tracing the cuts to be made; then, using a handsaw, the board was cut into pieces. The pencil lines are still visible on the backs of many old puzzles.
Initially, cutting was done by hand , as machines did not exist. Electric saws only became available in the nineteenth century. This made jigsaws much easier to make. Another improvement was the introduction of plywood , which was much cheaper than hardwood. As a result of these developments, the price of jigsaws dropped, and more people could afford to buy them.
Since the early 20th century, wooden puzzles have enjoyed periods of enormous success, especially in the United States, becoming a trend and creating a consolidated market: that of adult puzzles . Cardboard puzzles were introduced in the late 19th century and, like wooden puzzles, the pieces were initially cut individually with a circular saw.
Cardboard was primarily used for children’s puzzles. In fact, die-cut cardboard only became popular in the twentieth century.
In this process, thin strips of metal with sharp edges are twisted and woven into intricate patterns and attached to a plate.
The assembly is called a “ matrix ”.
The matrix is inserted into a press, which is then lowered, forcing the matrix against a sheet of cardboard containing an image, cutting it into pieces. The matrix is then raised and a new illustrated sheet is inserted. The matrix is lowered again and another puzzle is created.
The process continues until enough puzzles have been cut to meet demand.
Hundreds of die-cut puzzles can be produced in the time it takes to cut a single wooden puzzle.
Although puzzle making was greatly simplified in this way, American puzzle manufacturers assumed that their customers only wanted wooden puzzles and would never be interested in cheaper substitutes.
In the early 1930s , wooden puzzles sold for about a cent a piece, so a 100-piece puzzle cost about a dollar .
At that time, this was a huge expense for the average American family.
For example, pork chops sold for ten cents a pound, sugar cost four cents a pound, and a loaf of bread cost a nickel.
The average person could not afford to buy many wooden puzzles.
In 1931 , a customer asked the Einson-Freeman company in Long Island City, New York, to create a new product: a die-cut puzzle that he wanted to give as a gift with his toothbrush. The puzzle was a resounding success. Other customers liked the idea, too, and many more orders followed.
The next year, someone thought that people might actually pay for a cardboard puzzle, and so large-scale production and sales began.
The puzzles were distributed one at a time, weekly.
This event marked the beginning of the sale of the “weekly” puzzle , and from that moment the jigsaw puzzle industry was born. In fact, at the time, the New York Times reported that approximately 12,000 copies of the first weekly puzzle were put on sale by an unidentified manufacturer around September 1932 in what they called a “New England town.”
Further research points to Boston , Massachusetts, as the city and the Viking Manufacturing Company as the manufacturer.
The 12,000 puzzles sold out almost immediately, and by November, production had increased to 100,000 puzzles a week.
In December, the number was 200,000, and January’s weekly production was half a million “Weekly Picture Puzzles.”
The puzzles, sold for 25 cents each, were distributed by newsstands throughout the Orient.
Within a couple of months, dozens of companies had joined Viking to produce weekly puzzles.
Furthermore, other companies, not content with selling one puzzle per person per week, began selling dozens of different puzzles in department stores. Newspapers in Schenectady, New York, reported that the puzzle craze in that city began in November 1932 and spread so rapidly that during the Christmas season, not a single puzzle could be found on newsstands or in stores, and that this “shortage” lasted for 48 hours.
Most likely, this puzzle shortage occurred everywhere, because soon afterward, puzzle factories began working long shifts to keep up with demand. By early January 1933 , the craze that began in Boston had spread from coast to coast and even to Canada.
Large numbers of puzzles were produced everywhere , particularly in California, Illinois, Ohio, New York, and Pennsylvania, as well as Massachusetts.
Soon, a wide range of products flooded the market, and demand was unstoppable. At the height of the craze, approximately 6,000,000 puzzles were sold weekly .
This is a surprising fact, since the country was still in the midst of the Great Depression .
Such interest and hysteria never occurred again in the entire history of the puzzle.
This puzzle-solving madness came to an abrupt end in March 1933 , when the new U.S. president, Franklin Roosevelt , in an effort to stop the flow of gold out of the country, closed the banks for nearly two weeks.
No one could cash a check during that period and a severe coin shortage developed.
People have given up on purchasing anything except the most vital necessities, such as food.
Interest in puzzles waned and the great puzzle craze ended.
But the history of puzzles doesn’t end there: in fact, this period of incredible success allowed the creation of a stable industry and a long-lasting and loyal market of enthusiasts on a large scale.
