With the onset of the Great Depression in 1929, puzzles for adults enjoyed a resurgence of popularity, peaking in early 1933 when sales reached an astounding 10 million per week.
Following this craze, puzzles continued as a regular adult diversion for the next two decades. Pastime puzzles were so successful that Parker Brothers stopped making games and devoted its entire factory to puzzle production in 1909. Second, Pastimes and other brands moved to an interlocking style that reduced the risk of spilling or losing pieces. But the fascination of pieces shaped like dogs, birds, and other recognizable objects more than offset the somewhat reduced challenge. Figure pieces made puzzles a bit easier to assemble. First, Parker Brothers, the famous game manufacturer, introduced figure pieces into its Pastime brand puzzles.
The next few years brought two significant innovations. Peak sales came on Saturday mornings when customers selected puzzles for their weekend house parties in Newport and other country retreats. High society, however, embraced the new amusement. A 500-piece puzzle typically cost $5 in 1908, far beyond the means of the average worker who earned only $50 per month. And, unlike children's puzzles, the adult puzzles had no guide picture on the box if the title was vague or misleading, the true subject could remain a mystery until the last pieces were fitted into place.Ĭheck out our puzzle maps of the United States.īecause wood puzzles had to be cut one piece at a time, they were expensive. A sneeze or a careless move could undo an evening's work because the pieces did not interlock. There were no transition pieces with two colors to signal, for example, that the brown area (roof) fit next to the blues (sky). Most had pieces cut exactly on the color lines. The puzzles of those days were quite a challenge. Contemporary writers depicted the inexorable progression of the puzzle addict: from the skeptic who first ridiculed puzzles as silly and childish, to the perplexed puzzler who ignored meals while chanting just one more piece to the bleary-eyed victor who finally put in the last piece in the wee hours of the morning. Puzzles for adults emerged around 1900, and by 1908 a full-blown craze was in progress in the United States. But the biggest surprise for the early puzzle makers would be how adults have embraced puzzling over the last century. Children's puzzles have moved from lessons to entertainment, showing diverse subjects like animals, nursery rhymes, and modern tales of super heroes. The eighteenth century inventors of jigsaw puzzles would be amazed to see the transformations of the last 250 years.
American children still learn geography by playing with puzzle maps of the United States or the world. The dissected map has been a successful educational toy ever since. John Spilsbury, an engraver and mapmaker, is credited with inventing the first jigsaw puzzle in 1767. The origins of jigsaw puzzles go back to the 1760s when European mapmakers pasted maps onto wood and cut them into small pieces.
0 kommentar(er)
