National Crayola Day

There is an annual fun celebration on April 25th for all people, called National Crayola Day.

History of National Crayola Day

The Crayola crayons were the first brand using for children, and the inventor was Edwin Binney and C. Harold Smith. The brand's first box of 8 Crayola crayons appeared in 1903. They were sold for a nickel and some available colors are black, brown, blue, red, purple, orange, and yellow and green. Alice Stead Binney, the wife of Edwin Binney, was the creator of Crayola, who took the French words for chalk (craie) and oil (oleaginous) and combined them.

At present, there are more than a hundred different types of crayons produced by Crayola such as crayons that sparkle, glow in the dark, smell like flowers, change color, and clean surfaces and materials.

According to "History of Crayons" by Crayola

Europe is the birthplace of modern crayons, which is similar to an artificial cylinder with the contemporary sticks. The first crayons are a mixture of coal and oil. However, the charcoal is replaced by gouache of various colors. Later, people founded that substituting wax for oil in the mixture made the resulting sticks stiffer and easier to handle.

The birth of Crayola crayons

In 1864, Joseph W. Binney set up the Peekskill Chemical Company for procedure with a black and red range, such as lamp black, charcoal, and red iron oxide paint often used to cover the color paint for barns in Peekskill, NY.

Peekskill Chemical was also a method to create an improved and blackened car tire. Black carbon is added in order to increase the life for tire by four or five times.

Around 1885, Edwin Binney and C. Harold Smith founded the Binney & Smith partnership. Cousins successfully added shoe polish and printing inks by expanding more product lines. In 1900, there was a stone mill in order to manufacture slate pencils for schools in Easton, PA, which was the beginning of Binney and Smith's research into colorful and non-toxic drawing media for children. A new crayon for marking barrels was created; however, there were a lot of soot that are too toxic for children. They are confident that they have developed the pigment and wax mixing techniques which can be adapted to produce a wide range of safe colors.

In 1903, Crayola Crayons was created and developed a new brand with outstanding quality.

The founder of Crayola crayons were Edwin Binney and C. Harold Smith, who founded Binney & Smith in 1885 (interestingly National Crayon Day, which happened last month, is celebrated on the occasion their company anniversary). Shoe polish and printing ink are created by two cousins. Until 1900, pencils were started to make from slate. Gouache and paraffin wax were combined together to create a crayon marking barrels. Because of its dangerous affects for children, they started finding what materials they could use that was safer than now.

As the result, they created the crayons with safe colorants, and gradually the first crayons being safe for children were founded. The first box with eight crayons and costs one nickel was on sale since 1903. By combining the French words including craie and oleaginous (means chalk and oil), Alice Stead Binney who was the wife of Edwin, came up with the name Crayola. Many colors are no longer in production from the early years. There were more than 750 names using for colors, which represent more than 330 colors over the years. Crayola has made a wide variety of crayons including crayons that can change, sparkle, and glow in the dark.

How to celebrate National Crayola Day

Do you have any ideas for National Crayola Day? Simply, you can choose to buy some Crayola crayons and coloring. How will you do if you own some old crayons? Do you think about how to create new ones? Of course, it is possible to melt them down. You can also learn more about Crayola and other crayons by reading about them or by visiting The Crayola Experience. In addition, you can get more knowledge by watching some videos of how they are made. To get more memorable experience, how about watching Mr. Rogers' video showing how to make crayons in 1981?