Who Invented Crayola Crayons?

With more than 300 companies manufacturing crayons at the start of the 20th Century, Edwin Binney and C. Howard Smith gained a strong market advantage with products that didn’t include toxic pigments.?

The two cousins introduced Crayola crayons in 1903 with a box of eight colors—black, blue, brown, red, purple, orange, yellow, and red— and they eventually gained a large enough market share that their brand name became synonymous with their most popular product.?

Binney’s father, Joseph, founded the Peekskill Chemical Works in 1864 to manufacture charcoal, lamp black, and a variety of other industrial products and ingredients.?

Binney and Smith took over the company in 1885 when Joseph retired and renamed it, simply enough, Binney & Smith. They specialized in a red pigment that was used in barn paint and lamp black, which was used to darken rubber tires before expanding into shoe polishes and printing inks.?

The cousins purchased a stone mill in Easton, Pennsylvania, in 1900 and began producing slate pencils and dustless chalk for educational markets. The company’s dustless chalk won a gold medal at the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1902.?

Binney’s wife, Alice, had a significant influence on the products that made Binney and Smith wealthy. A former schoolteacher, Alice understood the propensity of kindergartners to place almost any object that would fit into their mouths. Crayons, pencils, glue, small rocks, whatever. And with most of the crayons available at the time using toxic pigments, she recognized not only the danger but also the opportunity for nontoxic crayons.?

Alice Binney also suggested the Crayola name, which blends French words for “chalk” and “oily.”

Wider Color Palettes?

By 1910, Crayola had doubled its palette to 16 colors. When Binney & Smith purchased the Munsell Color Co. in 1926, it expanded to 22 colors and added a color-wheel system Munsell had developed to highlight complementary colors.?

Smith died in 1931, and his death was followed by Binney’s passing in 1934. The company continued expanding its operations and its color palette. In 1949, the company offered a 48-crayon box. And in 1958, it introduced its iconic 64-color box with the built-in sharpener.?

In 1969, the company built a new factory in Easton and, five years later, it relocated its corporate headquarters from New York City to Easton.?

Over the years, crayon colors were added, dropped, and renamed. In 1962, the “Flesh” color was renamed to a less-creepy “Peach,” a move that reflected skin coming in more than peach color.?

In 1999, Crayola renamed its “Indian Red” crayon to “Chestnut” in response to concerns the color, which had been named after a rich pigment found in India, was intended to represent the skin color of Native Americans.

In 1972, Crayola introduced a variety of fluorescent crayon colors. Because it was 1972.?

In 1984, Binney & Smith (which had gone public in 1961) was purchased by Hallmark. In 2007, Hallmark renamed its subsidiary “Crayola” to reflect the company’s best-known product.?

Today, Crayola maintains a strong presence in eastern Pennsylvania. It manufactures crayons at plants in Easton and Bethlehem, as well as at a factory in Mexico City. And the company operates the Crayola Experience in Easton. The Crayola Experience, which opened in 1996, is an interactive museum and entertainment attraction that’s spurred economic development in Easton’s once-troubled downtown.?

And the company offers crayons in 120 colors and variations that include glitter. All of which, if not appetizing as a snack, are at least non-toxic if someone chews on one.?