Are crayons just for kids?

Were crayons invented just for kids? You might think so, but crayons were actually invented for artists. In 1745, a French artist named Antoine-Joseph Loriot wanted a new type of art medium since the ones he used smeared too easily.

Loriot set to work to invent something better. For years, he experimented with waxes and colored powders. He discovered that beeswax worked very well, so he formed little "colored sticks of hardened wax." The problem was, beeswax was hard to come by, and it was very expensive. Nonetheless, Loriot liked the little coloring sticks and made them for his artist friends to try. Unfortunately, the little coloring sticks did not catch on. He tried other kinds of waxes, but they melted too easily. Loriot knew his idea was a good one, even though the sticks weren't successful during his lifetime.

Nearly 150 years later, in 1885, two Americans named Edwin Binney and Harold Smith manufactured colored pigments for paints and other things. One day they happened to be at a school where they saw teachers using old-fashioned coloring sticks. The coloring sticks were the same ones developed by Loriot. No one knows how they got to America, but Binney and Smith thought the idea was brilliant. They borrowed a coloring stick, took it back to the factory and began their own experiments. Instead of expensive beeswax, they used petroleum-based paraffin wax, and they made the coloring sticks nontoxic so children could use them safely. Finally in 1903, the very first box of wax coloring sticks was offered for sale under the name Crayola^®, a name that means "oily chalk" in French. The first box had eight basic colors and cost one nickel. Ultimately, Hallmark Corp. bought the Crayola^® patent, which it still owns today.

For more fun reading and other activities, try these Web sites:    • Crayola.com    • Invention of Crayons    • Book activities

Since 1903, more than 600 colors have been developed. Some of the old favorites are still around, but others are occasionally retired from service. Generations of adults grew up using Crayolas^® and remain fiercely loyal to their favorites. When the eight original colors were retired, there was an uprising by adults not wanting to lose their favorite colors. Hallmark had to create a Commemorative Edition of Crayola^® crayons to make people happy again.