Dinner and talk by Professor Anna Shechtman
Brought to you by the Cornell Club of
Monmouth & Ocean Counties

Event Details:
Date: Sunday, October 27, 2024
Time: 5:00–8:00 PM
Location: Johnny Piancone’s — 591 Broadway, Long Branch, NJ 07740
Cost: Early Bird $39 until 10/6/24; General Admission $49 (begins 10/7/24). Cost includes 3 Course Dinner. Cash bar will be available. Free parking in adjacent parking lot

For event questions, contact Pat Reilly

The history of the crossword puzzle surprisingly intersects with the history of American feminism. Between 1913, when the puzzle was invented, and the 1960s, most crosswords were created by women (often bored housewives with college degrees that they otherwise weren’t putting to use—women who wanted careers but, before the second wave, not the social stigma of being “career women.”) Now, more than 80% of crosswords are created by men. There are at least three causes of this historical transformation. It’s partly a function of a changing workforce: as more women entered the labor market and were still expected to do the large share of housework and childcare, few had time for this rarified, low-wage puzzle work. It has also been informed by the impacts of computing on crossword construction, and the invention of the “nerd” stereotype—both which have reshaped the demographics of the “CrossWorld” (as we sometimes call it) in the image of Silicon Valley. 

As we’ve shifted to a service economy marked by gig work, many jobs have become feminized, in which low wages, flexible hours, and few benefits are the norm. This talk examines an inverse history: how did puzzlemaking masculinize as a profession? Why is a job that was once associated with New Women and housewives now run by men?

Anna Shechtman is an Assistant Professor of Literatures in English at Cornell University, specializing in Media Studies and American Literature. Her research has been published in Critical Inquiry, Representations, and nonsite.org, among other journals. Her freelance essays and reviews have appeared in many outlets, including ArtForum, the New Yorker, the New York Review of Books, the Yale Review, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, where she is an editor-at-large. 

After college she was the assistant to Will Shortz, puzzle editor of the New York Times. She now writes monthly crossword puzzles for the New Yorker, and her first book, The Riddles of the Sphinx: Inheriting the Feminist History of the Crossword Puzzle was published by HarperOne in 2024.

Read more about Professor Shechtman:
– Get a Clue: Anna Shechtman Is a Star in the World of Crosswords – from Cornellians, July, 2022
– Entering the ‘Matrix of Language’ With a Crossword Puzzle Fiend – from NY Times, March, 2024
– ‘Queen of crosswords’ recovers the puzzle’s feminist side – from Cornell Chronicle, March, 2024

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