No, I didn’t spell our beloved game the wrong way – this is how Viola L. Cecil spelled it in 1938 when she wrote her book, MAAJH – The American Version of an Ancient Chinese Game (the book was revised in 1939). In the foreword to her book, Viola signs her name with the title, “President National Mah Jongg League.” Since the National Mah Jongg League was founded in 1937, it would seem that Viola was one of the founding members and probably the very first president. 
Here’s the front and back cover. The book is bound with a red spiral – very cute.
I love the way the book exhibits the Table of Contents:
At the bottom of the Foreword we can see her very official title:
These next two pages describe the tiles and “equipment” of the game:
And it is in these next two pages where Viola explains the terms of Mah Jongg. I wasn’t familiar with the term “dogging” but I suspect that we all have used this defensive method of playing more than once!
Mah Jongg and Me 
The rule for a dead hand seems to have changed
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The rule for a dead hand seems to have changed since that time..and the number of members in 1939 ( 25,000) seemed huge for the time
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Hi Shirley – good observations! And you are so right – 25,000 people playing Mah Jongg in 1938 must have seemed as if most of the world was playing! Ann xxo
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Nice book Ann, not seen this one before, and I like the format, very progressive for that era!
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Hi Tony – wow! Can’t believe that I have something you haven’t seen before!!! And you are so right – the format is really unusual and progressive for the time – I wonder what she was all about…can’t really find any information on her. xxo
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I was just reading about this last night!
To quote Tom Sloper’s book, The Red Dragon & The West Wind:
“So, in 1937 four ladies in New York – Viola Cecil, Dorothy Meyerson, Herma Jacobs, and Hortense Potter – decided to form a national organization. The National Mah Jongg League (NMJL) was established to standardize rules, and to publish a standard list of hands on a printed card that would change from year to year. The first president of the league, Viola L. Cecil , wrote the rules into a book of rules and an explanation of the card, entitled Maajh, The American Version of an Ancient Chinese Game.”
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Dearest Joy – leave it to you to get the right information on Viola Cecil – thank you so much! I will post this tomorrow.
Ann xxo
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Interesting, the categories look similar to those in the Wright-Patterson style!
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It mentions that the flowers are used as jokers? I had not been aware of that before.
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Probably because there were no Joker tiles or stickers back then and at that time there were usually far more than 8 Flowers in each set so it may be that the extra Flowers were used as “wild cards.” I’m just taking a wild guess at this. Perhaps someone with actual knowledge might respond to this. Ann xxo
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I think I read that somewhere and that sets from the fifties had 2 joker tiles, if you have an old set the flowers will have just 2 and the flowers will have old joker stickers. Maybe the 8 Jokers was standardized in the 50’s/60’s?
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