From Newsgroup: rec.games.bridge

On Friday, 9 January 2015 03:35:53 UTC+11, Jennifer Murphy wrote:

I know that Charles Goren standardized and popularized the old 4-card
major bidding system, but who invented it? Was there one main person, or
did it evolve over time?

Auction Bridge bidding was based around constructive non-forcing bids, as the aim was to simply outbid the opponents to win the contract, (without conceding a greater penalty). So you bid 5 card suits, as you were likely to be left in them. If you had shortage in Opener's suit, you could "Take-out" of it into your own 5 card suit. I read a couple of old auction bridge books from the 20s when I was at uni that used this approach.

The idea of Contract existed e.g. Plafond in France, but it didn't become popular until Vanderbilt created his Contract system in 1925 with increased penalties and slam bonus that required accurate bidding. By 1929 Vanderbilt Contract was the dominant form being played in Gentleman's clubs.
Openning, and responding with 4 card suits was a feature of Culbertson's Approach Forcing. With the forcing 1/1 you could bid 4 card suits with a good chance of finding a 4-4 fit, which are superior to 5-3 fits as Trumps. Culbertson challenged Lenz to prove that his Approach Forcing was superior to the old Auction bridge style bidding in 1931 and then P. Sim's team. Culbertson won easily (though his team the better players). Culbertson became the leading bridge theorist and writer and played more exhibition matches to promote his system. Everyone adopted this idea. Acol was first published in 1934 after Culbertson's team toured the UK and used 4 card Majors and a forcing 2/1, which Culbertson then adopted for his Gold Book system in 1936.
Roth-Stone and Kaplan-Sheinwold popularised 5 card Majors in natural systems used by experts in the 1950s. But it took decades (until after Goren handed his publishing empire over to others who favoured modern methods) that they became standard for club duplicate and social bridge.
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From Newsgroup: rec.games.bridge

I disagree that Albarran rCLinventedrCY canap|-. George Coffin (the same George Coffin who used to direct the duplicate game at the Newton, MA YMCA years ago) stipulates on page 158 of his book titled rCLNBC: Natural Big ClubrCY (written in 1969):

rCLCanap|- bids were originated in 1936 by the late George O. Charron of Nashua, past president of the New Hampshire Bridge Association. A few years later the late Jack Kushner of Springfield, Mass. injected canap|- bids into the Tierney Notrump System (TNT) that was originated by Edgar Tierney of Westfield.rCY

This pre-dates by a decade anything Pierre Albarran (the so-called rCLinventorrCY of canap|-) ever published.
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