Abby S., Reporter
February 14, 2012
Filed under Stuff That Defines Us, Top Stories
Inspired by the British Museum’s “Stuff That Defines Us: A History of the World in 100 Objects,” Padua360 shares with readers the origins of certain objects and how they play a role in life today.
In 1885, cousins, Edwin Binney and C. Harold Smith established the company Binney & Smith. Around 1900, they bought a stone mill in Easton, Pennsylvania, where they used wax crayons to label crates. The crayons sparked the idea of children using crayons to draw and color pictures. The only problem was that the wax crayons that were used in the stone mill were poisonous. The cousins found a way to produce non-toxic crayons, making them safe for the use of children.
Edwin’s wife, Alice Stead Binney, used the French words for chalk and oily and combined them to create the crayon company’s name, Crayola. In 1903, the first box of crayons containing only eight colors (black, blue, brown, green, orange, red, violet, and yellow), sold for a nickel. As the years went on, more and more colors were added, including specialty assortments, like glitter crayons.
In 1993, Crayola held a contest for the customers to create names for new crayon colors, for example, Macaroni & Cheese. In 1999, the color Indian Red was changed to Chestnut because some people did want the children to think that it was the actual color of Native Americans’ skin tone. Today, Crayola Crayons are still very popular and are used by people all over the world.