The history of crayola crayons

For nearly a hundred years children have used crayons to express themselves and their creativity. This is largely due to the brilliant inventors of one American company; Binney & Smith Inc. Edwin Binney and Harold Smith founded Binney & Smith in New York City in the 1800’s; around 1885, Joseph’s son, Edwin Binney, and nephew, C Harold Smith formed the partnership of Binney & Smith. The cousins extended Their company’s product line by includingshoe polishand printing ink. The company purchased a stone mill in Eastern PA in 1900, to produce slate pencils for schools.

This began the cousins to begin research into non-toxic and colorful drawing materials for children to use. They’ve already accomplished inventing a new wax crayon used to mark milk crates as well as barrels, however the materials were covered with carbon black which was too toxic for children to use.

Despite this concern the cousins were confident the pigment and wax mix they developed could be converted for a variety of safe colors. And, in 1903, a new brand of superior crayons tucked inside a yellow and green box of “ eight” was introduced to the public- Crayola Crayons. (In French “ Crayola” oleaginous means “ oily and crayons “ craie” means

“ chalk”). Generations later, thanks to its innovation in manufacture and excellent marketing by extending on their success by creating more colors inside bigger yellow and green boxes and changing with the times: In 1962, the color flesh, changed to peach, since everyone’s skin color wasn’t the same as well as a variety of other colors. Because of this adjusting to the changing times Binney & Smith are still king at the market they created decades ago.

-Works Cited-

Author: Mary Bellis;

Inventors, Crayola Crayon History. WWW. inventors. about. com/library/inventors/blcrayon. html