Thank You, FANAC

[kevin_standlee]

WSFS's attorney asked me today if there was anything that showed the Hugo Award trophy in use in its early days, so that if we are asked by the US Patent & Trademark Office (we're in the process of filing a service mark on the rocket trophy design), we could show first use. Thanks to the FANAC fan history web site, I was able to find a page from a 1955 Worldcon progress report that shows pictures of that year's trophy and calls it a Hugo. In those early days, "Hugo" was only the informal name, the formal one being "Science Fiction Achievement Award," a la Oscar/Academy Award.

Note that not only had they prepared their trophies in plenty of time to have pictures of them in their last progress report, but that there was none of the current nonsense about keeping the trophy base design a secret until an unveiling at the ceremony. Of course, in those days the bases were all simple blocks, too.

Comments

[purpleranger.livejournal.com]

When was it first called "Hugo," even informally?

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

The earliest reference I can find is the 1955 Worldcon publications, but my research is not exhaustive and I'm not an expert on this. The 1953 Worldcon just called them "Achievement Awards," apparently (going by their publications). There were no awards in 1954.

All in all, it's starting to look like the 1955 Worldcon was where the Hugo Awards reached more of their now-familiar form, with the 1953 Awards being more of a prototype for what would follow.