The Jigsaw Puzzle: 6piecing Together a History

Jigsaw puzzle collector and historian Williams covers every aspect of the game's development in this comprehensive history. ""The jigsaw puzzle is still going strong as it approaches the 250th anniversary of its birth,"" the author writes. She then goes on to explain how jigsaws were advocated by the philosopher John Locke as an educational toy, used by Ellis Island physicians to ascertain immigrants' mental capacity and embraced by Americans who took them out of lending libraries to keep their minds off the 1930's economic depression. A particularly interesting time is the 1870s. Then, Williams writes, ""two movements came together... women's handicrafts and fret-work."" Women began making puzzles with small treadle-powered saws and selling them for profit and for charity; in this way, puzzles became an early catalyst for women's emancipation from the home. Other segments of the book detail puzzle creators and collectors and instruct readers on how to make their own puzzles. Williams's writing, while never pedestrian, is not especially distinctive, and the scope of the book doesn't allow some of the more interesting characters to receive the fuller treatment their lives merit. For puzzle fans and friends, of which Williams convincingly insists there are still millions, this book will be a delightful past-time when an actual puzzle isn't available. Photos.