Wax crayon (Crayola)
Lápiz de cera (Crayola)
- Date
- 1903 · confidence high
- Place
- Easton, Pennsylvania, United States
- Credited to
- Edwin Binney and C. Harold Smith (Binney & Smith)
- Field
- Matter & energy
What it is
Binney & Smith launched the first box of Crayola wax crayons, non-toxic and cheap, aimed at school classrooms; the name was coined by Alice Stead Binney, combining the French word for "chalk" with a term for paraffin wax.
Earlier European drawing waxes existed (Joseph Lemercier, Paris, c. 1828), as did other Binney & Smith industrial waxes from 1902 (Staonal sticks); the 1903 Crayola box is what fixed today's product and name.
What it led to
- Crayola becoming the dominant, genericised wax-crayon brand in the US
- Standardisation of children's school drawing materials
- Hundreds of coloured-wax manufacturers through the 20th century