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Jigsaws aren’t a puzzle to Anne Williams.
They shouldn’t be after 25 years of research into this cultural phenomenon. So what is the attraction of jigsaw puzzles, which have been in existence since the 1760s?
“It’s a challenge, a way to test yourself, and it’s satisfying when you’re done,” said the Lewiston resident. “It can be either a social or a solitary activity.”
Williams, a professor of economics at Bates College, knows jigsaw puzzles. She is considered the nation’s foremost authority on the subject and has one of the largest collections of puzzles, with 8,000 to 9,000 nestled inside her modest cape. She has written more than 50 articles and four books on the subject, most recently “The Jigsaw Puzzle: Piecing Together a History,” released by Berkley in November. She and her collection have been featured on “Martha Stewart Living” and PBS’ “History Detectives” and in a number of national publications.
The reasons that Williams enjoys jigsaw puzzles are plentiful.
“I find it very soothing to do a puzzle,” she said. “I’ll sit with a lapboard and do a puzzle while watching TV. I love to be challenged and teased. I love to see the creativity of how people made the puzzles. Also, puzzles are a mirror on history. What people were thinking about a hundred years ago is what they put on their puzzles.”
It’s evident that these puzzles are an important part of Williams’ life. Her car sports the license plate “PUZZLE.” A wreath made of puzzle pieces decorates one door of her home. Stacked on a table in her entryway are a couple of hundred puzzles that she has yet to put together, “enough to keep me busy through retirement.” There are puzzle placemats, puzzle bookcases and puzzle ottomans.
Although there are puzzles throughout the house, Williams keeps most of them in a couple of rooms upstairs. Some are put together and stored in map drawers, while others remain stacked in their boxes. Most look in excellent shape despite being decades or even centuries old. She added that a dry place with a consistent temperature is best for puzzle storage.
Although her collection includes a cross-section of all types of jigsaw puzzles, her favorite are the wooden ones.
“I like the way they feel,” Williams said. “When you drop a piece, you can hear it hit. Also, they are individually cut, so each is unique.”
Putting together puzzles was a common activity among Williams’ family during her formative years, and that’s when she first learned to love assembling them.
As an adult, she began to try her hand at cutting wooden puzzles. To study how others had done that, she went to her family’s old puzzles and began to frequent flea markets in the late ’70s. She found a book on European puzzles but couldn’t find a similar volume on the history of American puzzles.
“I thought it would be easy to write one,” she said. “That was 25 years ago.”
Researching such a history meant visiting museums and libraries and talking with dealers and collectors. She also interviewed those who created puzzles, or their surviving spouses or children.
Jigsaw puzzles, which first were made of wood, originally were used as educational tools, with dissected maps a way for youngsters to study geography.
The golden age of puzzling was during the Depression in the 1930s, when many unemployed or underemployed men and women picked up a fret, jig or scroll saw and began trying their hands at cutting puzzles.
Maine was a hotbed of such enterprise, with more than 100 home-based puzzle crafters in 1933 alone. Williams pointed to boxes on her dining-room table containing puzzles made in Hampden, Newport, Bangor and Old Town as examples.
Most of today’s puzzles are quite different from their predecessors. Guide pictures didn’t come into vogue on adult puzzles until the 1930s (some modern, high-end puzzles still don’t include pictures). Most puzzles now are made of cardboard. Also, puzzles were hand cut until the ’30s, when die cutting became popular, allowing manufacturers to make more product with less-skilled workers.
Also, since the 1880s, puzzles have been a popular vehicle for advertising. A standout example was a 1932-33 puzzle for Esso (Exxon’s ancestor) which featured artwork by Dr. Seuss.
Not all of Williams’ research made it into her new book.
“The publisher had a strict limit on length, so I had to curb myself,” she said. “I collected so many stories and would like to get them in print. That may become a self-published project at some point.”
The electronic age has been a boon for jigsaw collectors such as Williams.
“I’m an eBay addict,” she said. “I’m having to restrain myself, as the puzzles are spilling out into other rooms. There’s a couple hundred wooden puzzles [on eBay] any given day. The stuff is out there, because as the prices have gone up, people have become aware of it and sell theirs.”
Williams cautioned that half of the older puzzles are missing pieces.
“You either need to buy them cheap, so you don’t care if there’s a missing piece, or get the seller to guarantee to take it back if there are pieces missing,” she said.
Today, it’s possible to put together puzzles on a computer. Yet Williams said there also would be a demand for the old-fashioned kind.
“Playing on the computer is not the same as sitting down to do a puzzle with family and friends,” she said. “Also, it’s not the same tactile experience. You’re not picking up a piece and turning it around, trying it from all angles. It’s a very different sensation.”
Dale McGarrigle can be reached at 990-8028 and dmcgarrigle@bangordailynews.net.
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