On November 18, 1932, the Motion Picture Academy held its fifth annual awards show at the Ambassador Hotel in the heart of what is now Los Angeles' Koreatown. Academy President Conrad Nagel (an actor whos appeared in five films released during the eligibility window, none of which were nominared or seen by yours truly) was the Master of Ceremonies; he also presented the Short Subject awards as well as a Special Award to walt Disney, for the creation of Mickey Mouse. All that business followed the awarding of Sci-Tech Awards, Sound Recording, Interior Decoration, and Cinematography. And then the writing awards, presented by Howard Estabrook.
Estabrook was the reigning winner of the Best Adaptation Academy Award, which he received for Best Picture Cimarron. I don't know which writing category came first, but I'm starting with....Original Story. Not screenplay, mind you: story. Adaptation and Dialogue were often credited to different writers than the story, a holdover, I imagine, from the scenarist days of silent film. Starting in 1940, there were three writing awards: Story, Story and Screenplay, and Screenplay (for adaptations and screenplays not written by the original scenarist). Things were simplified after the awards for 1956, and from then on, it was just Adapted Screenplay and Original Screenplay.
That is now, but this was then. The four (?!) nominees for Original Story, 1931-32, were:
