Free Crossword Puzzles Have a Long History
The very first crossword puzzle was published in New York World in 1913. It was created by Arthur Wynne. These first puzzles were called “word-cross” puzzles quickly became very popular in American newspapers – being published weekly in such papers as the Boston Globe by 1917 and into the 1920s.
Trying to solve crossword puzzles soon became an extremely popular activity at libraries where fanatics in the early 1920s made such use of the dictionaries and encyclopedias that regular users sometimes had a hard time getting their hands on them. Crossword puzzles became quite a fad in the 20s in America.
The first book of crossword puzzles was published by Simon and Schuster in 1924 and it came with a pencil attached. The book was very popular and helped make crossword puzzles the fad of 1924. This actually inspired a debate amongst earnest American commentators and religious leaders, some of whom were convinced that crossword puzzles were a “sinful waste of time”, that provided only empty, childish entertainment with no redeeming intellectual stimulation. How times have changed!
By 1930 crosswords were no longer the fad they were in the early 20s, but by then they had become a staple of newspaper readers across the country. Virtually every significant newspaper in America carried them. Even the stodgy Times of London started publishing crosswords in 1942.
Puzzle books continue to be published by a number of specialty puzzle and games publishers and they are popular to this day. But the internet has created a whole new interest in puzzles, as people can now download almost unlimited puzzles of almost any type. Crossword puzzles remain a very good way to improve your spelling and reading comprehension skills, and to improve your vocabulary. In other words, crossword and word search puzzles are not only entertaining, but they are educational too.
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