ABSTRACT
Arthur Winn composed the first American crossword puzzle which appeared in the Sunday New York World, December 21, 1913. He admitted having gotten the idea after seeing a similar puzzle in the London Graphic several years before. Diamond-shaped, Winn's puzzle was all blanks, not yet showing the characteristic pattern of black and white squares. But while designing other puzzles and varying their shapes, he soon hit upon using black and white graphology to produce more interesting and challenging word games. Even if he did borrow the original idea, his innovations in construction still single him out as the father of the American crossword.
