DIY Newspaper Jigsaw Puzzles

by Erin Doane, Senior Curator

I love jigsaw puzzles and I love happening upon random interesting things in historic newspapers. A recent find brought both these loves crashing together. From February 6 to 17, 1933, the Star-Gazette ran daily jigsaw puzzles in its pages. The idea was that readers would paste the puzzle to a piece of cardboard, cut out the scrambled pieces, then put them together again. It was a fun, low-cost, diy activity - perfect for those suffering through the Great Depression - and it drew on the jigsaw puzzling craze that was sweeping the nation.

“Not Animal Crackers, It’s a Jigsaw Puzzle,” Star-Gazette, February 10, 1933

The craze seems to have begun in June 1932 when the Pro-Phy-Lac-Tic Brush Company of Florence, Massachusetts offered a free 50-piece jigsaw puzzle with the purchase of one of their toothbrushes. The promotion was such a huge success that other companies followed suit. Cardboard jigsaw puzzles quickly became the hot-to-go item for those looking for inexpensive entertainment. By early 1933, people of all walks of life had been swept up in the craze. Searching though the February Star-Gazette of that year shows that jigsaw puzzles were very popular locally. Clubs and organizations were putting together puzzles at their social meetings and individuals included them at their card parties. Stores like Izsard’s, Rubin Bros., and S.S. Kresge Co. carried full lines of jigsaw puzzles and sold them for as little as $0.25 each (about $6.25 today).

The Star-Gazette also reported on jigsaw puzzle news from further afield. On February 8, it reported that burglars broke into the store of Mrs. Catherine W. Garrahan in Watervliet, New York and stole 10 jigsaw puzzles among other items. On February 11, the newspaper shared the story of the first ever reported jigsawing injury. Mrs. Abbie Burns of Norristown, Pennsylvania was holding her 9-month-old baby while working on a puzzle when the baby jabbed her in the eye with one of the pieces. Physicians said the injury was not serious. In business news, it reported on the five-story factory in Long Island City that produced jigsaw puzzles day and night and the St. Paul puzzle manufacturer that experienced an 85 percent increase in business in one week when the jigsaw craze hit.

“See Who He is by the Jigsaw Method!,” Star-Gazette, February 6, 1933

It's not surprising at all that the Star-Gazette itself wanted to get in on the craze. On Monday, February 6, 1933, it ran its first jigsaw puzzle. It was a cut-up photograph of “a prominent Elmiran.” The caption declared, “This one’s easy to initiate you to the craze.” It also promised the man’s name would be printed with the next puzzle. So, it was sort of a twofer puzzle – put together the jigsaw, then guess who or what was shown in the picture. Most of the puzzles showed local people and places including Elmira College President Dr. Frederick Lent, Elmira Patrolman Edward P. Carroll, Fitch’s Bridge, a fire at St. Anthony’s Church, and the Elmira Reformatory. The first published puzzle showed Elmira Police Chief Elvin D. Edwin.

Star-Gazette jigsaw puzzle from February 6, 1933, printed on plain paper and put together.

The newspaper’s puzzle the next day offered an additional challenge. “Five minutes is the limit for putting together this jigsaw puzzle of a leading Elmira educator.” How quickly a person could put the puzzle together became a common theme. The puzzle on February 13 was titled “Time Yourself on This Cutout Puzzle” so I did. “It took the photographer half an hour to change a perfectly good picture into the picture you see herewith,” the caption states. It took me 13 minutes to cut it out (plain paper not glued to cardboard) and 5 minutes to put it together.

“Time Yourself on This Cutout Puzzle,” Star-Gazette, February 13, 1933

February 13 jigsaw puzzle put together showing the lobby of the Second National Bank in Elmira after a fire.

The first few puzzles were cut into geometric pieces. The February 10 jigsaw puzzle (shown at the top of this post) was the first to be cut into pieces that more closely resemble the puzzle pieces we know today. Perhaps this was done in reaction to reader feedback. “Its interlocking parts will remain where you place them,” according to the caption. I had to use tape to hold my puzzle pieces together, but mine were on plain paper not glued to cardboard.

February 10 jigsaw puzzle put together showing Elmirans at the Orange County races.

The final puzzle in the series was published on February 17, 1933. It was a return to geometric pieces – all triangles in this case. I don’t think it was intended to be the last puzzle as no answer as to what the picture showed was provided. Of course, I had to put it together and find out. It’s described as “a thing of beauty” in the caption. It is a lovely picture of a house, but I have no idea where it is or why it’s significant. So, the 1933 Star-Gazette jigsaw puzzle series ended on a mystery.

“You Working These Cut-Out Puzzles?,” Star-Gazette, February 17, 1933

February 17 jigsaw puzzle put together.

But wait, there’s more! Five days after that last puzzle was published, the Star-Gazette printed one more “Puzzle for the Holiday” (i.e. Washington’s Birthday). The solution to the jigsaw puzzle was also included several pages later making it clear that this was a stand-alone and not part of the previous series.

“Here’s Cutout Puzzle for the Holiday,” Star-Gazette, February 22, 1933

“Here’s the Cut-Out Properly Assembled,” Star-Gazette, February 22

For two weeks in February 1933, the Elmira Star-Gazette fully embraced the jigsaw puzzle craze and then it abruptly stopped. At least we still have the newspapers so we can enjoy the historic diy puzzles. If you’d like to try them yourself, click here for a pdf of all the puzzles. I didn’t include pictures of the solutions, so you’ll just have to figure them out for yourself. A stopwatch is optional.

How Grocer Girl Caused a Dictionary Shortage

by Erin Doane, Curator

On February 2, 1933, WESG aired the first in a series of weekly musical radio programs sponsored by Standard Food Stores. Just nine weeks later, on April 7, an article in the Star-Gazette reported that dictionaries were suddenly in high demand at the Steele Memorial Library.  “Legitimate” students were being crowded away from the library’s few available dictionaries as a direct result of this new radio show. How did this strange turn of events happen?

Postcard showing the Steele Memorial Library, c. 1940s

The perpetrator of the unexpected dictionary shortage was Standard Food Stores. In 1929, grocers in Elmira, under the guidance of C.M. and R. Thompkins, came together to form a group under the name “Standard Food Stores.” Each member business in the group remained independent but they worked together to give customers “better quality, better service, and better prices.” Initially, it was just grocers within the city of Elmira who were members of this group but it quickly grew to include stores throughout Chemung County and northern Pennsylvania.

Standard Food Stores Advertisement from the Star-Gazette, May 23, 1929

As part of its promotional efforts, Standard Food Stores started sponsoring a musical program on local radio station WESG in February 1933. For 15 minutes every Thursday morning starting at 11:30, listeners were treated to the sounds of the Standard Food Stores Orchestra under the direction of Don Huber. Also featured were Grocer Boy with his flowing tenor and Grocer Girl with her pleasing voice who would sing old time tunes. The duo was credited with much of the show’s popularity. Fans said they made the program one of the best broadcasts of its kind on the local station.

Many listeners wanted to know who Grocer Boy and Grocer Girl actually were. The pairs’ identities remained a secret until early May when their names were finally revealed. Grocer Boy was Paul Huber, brother of the orchestra leader. He was a regular performer on WESG throughout the early 1930s and also involved in local minstrel shows.

Grocer Girl was 31-year-old Florence Rohan. Florence was a musical prodigy who started playing the piano before she was three years old. Around 1925 she started touring with her two young daughters Jacqueline and Marilynn as the vocal group the Lullaby Trio. The group’s heyday was in the late 1930s and early 1940s when they performed on several national radio program including NBC’s Children’s Hour, the Horn and Hardart Children’s Hour on CBS, and Major Bowes’ Amateur Hour. The Trio also performed numerous times in Florida and once on a cruise ship to Bermuda.

Florence had moved with her family to Elmira from Hornell in 1932 and quickly became a regular on WESG. She was particularly active on the Arctic League programs. She ended up being the first woman announcer on Elmira radio, writing and presenting her own programs as “the Rosenbaum Stylist.” At the time of her unexpected death in 1962, she was one of the region’s best known musicians and performers.

But what does all this have to do with the shortage of dictionaries? Well, I’m getting there. On March 30, 1933, a word-building contest was announced on Standard Food Stores’ weekly musical radio program. During the 1930s, word games and contests became quite popular. In one particular type of word-building game, a song title was given and people tried to make as many words from the letters in the title as possible. Those with the most words could win prizes. A large dictionary was a great tool for such a challenge. I don’t know the particular details of the WESG contest, but because of the large audience brought in by the song stylings of Grocer Girl and Grocer Boy, many people heard about the contest and got working on word-building.

Headline from the Star-Gazette, April 7, 1933

Within a week, the three dictionaries at the Steele Memorial Library were in high demand. Librarian Kate Deane Andrew reported seeing people stand in front of their newest dictionary, which was tied to a table, for up to an hour at a time. “It is obvious that many of them are contest workers who hope to make some money by sending in the solutions to the word puzzles,” she told a reporter from the Star-Gazette. She seemed perturbed that the contesters were keeping those with more studious inquiries away from the dictionaries. The library did make efforts to accommodate these new patrons; they got a small booklet containing all of the three-letter words in the English language.

By mid-summer, the run on dictionaries at the Steele Memorial Library slowed down. The series of entertainments on WESG featuring Grocer Girl, Grocer Boy, and the orchestra with the associated word contests came to an end on August 3, and a whole series of novelty broadcasts commenced under the sponsorship of Standard Food Stores.

 

Beer Returns to Chemung County

by Erin Doane, Curator

It was 88 years ago this week that people in Elmira and surrounding towns tasted beer again after years of Prohibition. Nationally, Prohibition began on January 17, 1920 but Elmira had gone dry 15 months earlier on October 1, 1918. Between then and April 7, 1933, not a single drop of alcohol passed the lips of anyone in the county.

A group of men eating, drinking, and being merry in 1886

Okay, that’s not true at all. Throughout the entirety of Prohibition, illegal beer and hard liquor had been available (clickhere to read about the Briggs Brewery operation) and some low-alcohol beverages were legal to sell and consume (click here to learn about “near beer” and cereal beverages). For law-abiding beer lovers, however, the years had been quite dry. So, many people were excited when President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Cullen-Harrison Act on March 22, 1933 which legalized beer with an alcohol content of 3.2 percent. Previously under the Volstead Act, all beverages with an alcohol content of over 0.5 percent were illegal. On April 7, 1933, 3.2 percent beer became legal to sell and consume in 19 states, including New York, that did not have state prohibition laws that would supersede the federal legislation.

Map of states (marked in black) where 3.2 percent beer became legal on April 7, 1933, Star-Gazette, March 16, 1933

As soon as the act was signed, breweries jumped into action to get beer legally to their customers. They had two weeks to ramp up production before thirsty men and women could again partake of their beverages. Distributors, wholesalers, and retailers also began scrambling to get the precious brew. For those in Chemung County, the new beer was coming from the American Brewing Company of Rochester, West End Brewing Company of Utica, and from several other breweries in New York or New Jersey. The Nectar Brewery on Tuttle Avenue in Elmira (previously Mander’s Brewery before Prohibition) did not restart its operation until later in April. Briggs Brewery, by the way, did not ever switch to producing the lower-alcohol beer, preferring to continue illegally producing the full-strength stuff. 

The rush between President Roosevelt signing the Cullen-Harrison Act into law and its implementation just 15 days later was not just a challenge for breweries and beer distributors. The new federal law went into effect so quickly that state governments and local municipalities did not have time to make their own regulations. Elmira Police Chief Elvin D. Weaver said that local police had no jurisdiction over the sale of beer until a state law was put into effect as there were no city ordinances governing beer traffic. All that was needed to become a legal beer seller was a retail license, which the federal government was reportedly giving out indiscriminately to anyone who paid the $20 licensing fee. Beer would soon be available at bars, hotels, restaurants, pool halls, grocers, gas stations, and even soft drink stands in parks. 

The intersection of Water and Main Street in Elmira, early 1930s

Some local businesses took polls of their patrons to see if they were interested in buying beer. One unnamed restaurant reported to the Star-Gazette that the vote was 10 to 1 in favor of the sale of beer there. The Mark Twain Hotel manager announced that beer would be offered for sale in the coffee shop and with room services. Other businesses decided to wait and see how the rollout went. There was still considerable opposition to the consumption of alcoholic beverages in Elmira and throughout the entire nation. Frank E. Gannett took a stand against any sort of beer advertisements in his newspapers. Clinton N. Howard of Rochester, one of country’s most militant dry leaders, who had spoken on several occasions in Elmira, sent a message to President Roosevelt that read in part, “with the single exception of the crucifixion of the Son of God by the politicians of Jerusalem, legalization of beer is the crowning infamy of the ages.”

Despite uncertainty and opposition, at the stroke of midnight on Friday, April 7, 1933 barrels and bottles of 3.2 beer were loaded into waiting trucks at the breweries and government seals were broken on railroad cars that had already arrived at distribution hubs. The first shipment arrived in Elmira at 8:00 a.m. with more quickly following. Wholesalers purchased the beer at $2 to $2.50 per case (around $40 to $50 today) then turned around and sold it for 20 cents ($4) a bottle or 10 cents ($2) a glass for draft beer. The demand, however, greatly outpaced the supply and by noon many were left disappointed as they moved from one watering hole to the next searching for the highly-desired beverage. Several restaurants had promised beer with lunch but were not able to deliver. By Saturday morning, the supplies had been replenished and plenty of 3.2 beer was available for the rest of the weekend.

“First Shipment of Legal Beer Arrives This Morning,” Star-Gazette, April 7, 1933

It is estimated that within the first 24 hours, 1.5 million barrels of beer were sold in New York State. Despite not having passed laws yet regulating the new beer trade, Governor Lehman had signed a dollar-a-barrel beer tax in time to collect some substantial revenue for the state. New York City alone made $200,000 in fees from issuing retail permits. Nationally, the stock market rose in the hopes that legal manufacturing and distribution of beer would stimulate business in general.

Locally, the grand rollout of 3.2 beer seemed to have gone smoothly, despite shortages. Elmira police encountered no unusual disturbances that first weekend and reported that it was, in fact, unusually peaceful downtown. By Monday, April 10, “wet hysteria” had died down. In his ‘Round Town column in the Star-Gazette, Matthew Darrin Richardson summed it up by writing, “Beer ought to pretty well recover from its hysteria this week and settle down to regular traffic…By this time Elmirans should have satisfied their curiosity, if not their thirst entirely.”