Publication Title
American Journal of Play
Document Type
Article
Department or Program
Economics
Publication Date
2024
Keywords
adult play; COVID-19; Great Depression; jigsaw puzzle; pandemic; puzzle industry
Abstract
The author examines the therapeutic value of puzzles for adults during two major crises in the United States, the Great Depression of the 1930s and the COVID-19 pandemic of the early 2020s. Each period saw a huge surge in jigsaw puzzling throughout the country, she finds, and in both cases people turned to home-based leisure activities, either for financial reasons or because of lockdowns. Contemporary accounts from the two periods form the basis for the discussion. In both cases, the surge in puzzling reflected both the demand by consumers and the relatively easy entry of new small-scale producers into this area of playthings. Advertising played a major role, too, via premiums given to purchasers of consumer products in the 1930s, and more recently through social media and the Internet.
Recommended Citation
Williams, Anne D. “Therapeutic Play: Adult Puzzling and Hard Times.” American Journal of Play, vol. 16, no. 2–3, 2024, pp. 197–209.
Copyright Note
© The Strong
Required Publisher's Statement
This is the publisher's version of the work. This publication appears in Bates College's institutional repository by permission of the copyright owner for personal use, not for redistribution.
Comments
Original version is available from the publisher at: https://www.museumofplay.org/journalofplay/issues/volume-16-number-2-3/