February 22, 2016 • 29 mins
It's now a childhood classic, but the modern Crayola crayon has roots in the same company where carbon black was made for car tires at the turn of the 20th century. But people were creating art with colored implements before Binney and Smith made theirs.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff You missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Polly Fine, I'm Traycyvie Wilson, and we have a
legitimately thought sad an all story today. Hey, Tracy, have
(00:21):
you got men on this whole trend of adult coloring
that's all the rage. I have not personally bought any
of them, but I am aware of it. And one
of the things that I've seen happening on the tumbler
that we have in the tumbler dash word where I
see all the tumbler stuff that we follow is museum
collections issuing things from their collection as coloring pages were
(00:43):
grown ups. Yeah, they did a big social media push
called color Our Collections where a lot of them. You
search that hashtag, you will find stuff all over Twitter,
and they're sharing each other's collections in many cases like
they're linking to each other. But this sudden boom and
coloring books and coloring products aimed at the adult market
has been really fun to watch. But to me, one
of the most fascinating aspects of it has been watching
(01:05):
the delight with which my friends have been purchasing new
crayons to color. With a true confession, I did too. No,
I have not bought new crayons because there is a
literal drawer full of crayons directly next to me, like
there's there are hundreds of crayons and this draor next
to me right now. Well, it's funny because I have
(01:25):
a lot of friends who are artists, and um, you know,
plenty of them have really fancy pants unicorn type art tools.
But even so a lot of them have bought new
crayons to color, and coloring books with which I just
find fabulous, were attached to crayons. And the unique paraffine
smell of crayons was actually once ranked number eighteen on
a list of twenty cents that American adults most readily recognized.
(01:48):
That was part of a Yale University study some years ago.
And so we're talking about crayons today, and while Crayola
is not the only brand of crayons, it's certainly the
most ubiquitous, at least here in the US. So we're
focusing on the Crayolas story. We no shade thrown to
Rose Art or Dixon Ticonderoga, which makes praying crayons or
any of the other companies that produce crayons, but Crayola
(02:11):
is sort of the big one, uh, and they have
some interesting stuff. We're gonna talk about how they're often
they often get all the credit for inventing crayons. There
were things that were similar already in existence. We're going
to talk about that some. But that's the scoop. We're
gonna talk about the Creola story today, and so it's
a little lighter. There's no big tragedies. I'm happy to
(02:31):
report ahead of time. I hope that's not a spoiler
for people, but we've had a lot of dark stuff,
so I thought we we might enjoy. The closest to
a tragedy is that this story starts a while ago,
so that people involved are deceased. But that's really that's
not tragic so much as it's just gonna happen, so
it was starting at the beginning. Joseph Benny was born
(02:53):
in England on December six, eighteen thirty six, and he
moved to the United States in eighteen sixty. That same year,
his sister Eliza gave birth to a son named ce
Harold Smith uh and in eighteen sixty four, then twenty
eight year old Binny started a company called the Peak
Skill Chemical Works in Peakskill, New York. And this company
(03:13):
produced lamp black, which is a black pigment made from
soot or whale oil, and also produced hardwood charcoal for
heating fuel, which was ground and package there in the
Peak Skill facility. As his company was getting off the ground,
Benny was also starting a family. He and his new
bride Annie Eliza Conklin and there had their son, Edwin
on November eighteen sixty six. They would go on to
(03:37):
have seven more children. But we're mentioning these these individual
offspring because they're going to be pretty paramount as the
story goes on. So in eighteen eighty, Binny moved the
corporate office of the Peak Skill Chemical Works to New
York City to expand the business. And at that point
he hired his nephew, see Harold Smith, the one that
had been born to his sister Eliza, who was twenty
(03:59):
at the time, and went by Harold into a sales position.
And while he was still a teenager, Joseph Binny's own son,
Edwin Binney also joined the business, which was then renamed
the Peak Skill Chemical Company. It had been Peak Skill
Chemical works. Peak Skille Chemical expanded their offerings to include
a paint made with red iron oxide, and this was
an extremely popular product and Peaks Skill Chemicals Red paint
(04:22):
was used on many barns in the United States Northeast,
and though Joseph had expanded his business just five years prior,
in eighty five he retired and at that point his
son Edwyn and his nephew Harold, who had already proven
that they could work really, really well together, reformed the
company as partners under the name Binny and Smith. Benny
and Smith continued to grow the family business throughout the
(04:45):
late eighteen hundreds, they worked on the development of carbon black.
The pigment industry had been on a quest for a
black or black than lamp black for a long time,
and it appeared that Benny and Smith had finally found it, so,
as we said, even darker than lamp black. Carbon black
pigment is created by burning hydrocarbons in insufficient air. So
(05:05):
this is like the quickest and dirtiest of chemistry lessons.
But hydrocarbons are organic compounds that contain only hydrogen and carbon.
Common examples include methane, propane, butane, and octane because of
an abundance of natural gas deposits in Pennsylvania found in
the eighteen eighties. Benny and Smith used that discovery to
their advantage as they worked on the development of carbon black,
(05:28):
and Edwin Benny held the patent for a carbon black
manufacture apparatus starting in That patent number is four five three.
You can still look it up and we'll actually have
a link to it in the show notes, and he
wrote in his patent application quote, the objects of my
invention are to manufacture lamp black from oil in an
improved and economical manner, whereby waste of the product and
(05:50):
unnecessary expenditure of labor are avoided, And to manufacture carbon
black from gas in such a manner as to obtain
an improved quality of black, which will have the soft,
flaky texture of lamp black and the superior color of
carbon black made in the ordinary ways. We really cannot
overstate how big carbon black was. Not only does it
(06:10):
serve as a pigment, but it's also used as a
strengthening filler and rubber, and it was a big part
of solidifying Smith and Benny's success. In nineteen eleven alone,
B F. Goodrich ordered one million pounds of carbon black
for tire production. Eventually, carbon black would become a standard
component of car tires. Yeah, you may or may not
have noticed when you look at old pictures that a
(06:32):
lot of times the tires on cars were white, uh,
and then sometimes gray, And that was because those are
before carbon black became the standard. And as the turn
of the century approached, the business partner cousins were looking
for new ways to expand their business even more would
prove to be a really big year for them. They
opened a new mill in eastern Pennsylvania and they began
(06:53):
making slate school pencils there. This was actually a water
mill where they were grinding this late down and one
of the reasons for this move was a proximity to
slate minds. It made it cheaper to produce these pencils
as there was not as much overhead attached to the
transportation of the slate. They were really close by. This
move into the pencil market was a significant moment for
(07:14):
them because it started their connection to classroom supply. That
area of their business would be along lasting one. It
goes right into today's schools and it was lucrative as well.
And in addition to the new branch of the business,
UHD also featured a trip to an event that we've
referenced a few times in various episodes, which is the
Paris Exposition. Uh and Benny and Smith went and the
(07:37):
pair entered their company's black pigments into the industrial chemistry
competition at the expo and they won a gold medal
for them. In two Benny and Smith had another year
of significant growth. The company started producing a product that
still made today, the Stay on All crayon, which makes
a permanent wax mark on most services and is used
primarily in industrial applications. It's a simple a nation of
(08:00):
carbon black pigment along with paraffin. It replaced the company's
previous product intended for industrial marking needs, which was called
Eclipse Marking Inc. Yeah, that was like a liquid inc.
And this just made it so much easier because people
could hold it in their hands and it wouldn't fall
apart and they could just be marking on packages or
boxes or whatever. Production of dust less chalk also began
(08:21):
that same year for use in classrooms, and this was
created in response to teachers complaining about the steady layer
of dust chalk that was created in normal use and
the crumbling nature of most available chalks, So and Do Septic,
which was their trade name. Dustless chalk, was created through
an extrusion process that added I've seen it listed in
(08:43):
quotes weight. I don't know the actual chemistry involved to
the particles of chalk, so it made them less likely
to hover in the air, and they also just stuck
together better. N two was also the year that the
company officially incorporated. At this point, it was not only
producing its own pigment product, but also serving as an
international distributor for other companies that produced carbon black. And
(09:06):
we're about to get to a really pivotal year for
Binny and Smith. But before that, let's pause and have
a word from one of our fantastic sponsors. In nine
oh three, Harold in particular, was still talking to teachers
about the needs of the classroom. He often traveled to
schools to try to sell pencils and chalk, and he
made a point to listen to the teachers when they
spoke about what sources of supplies they'd like to have
(09:28):
in their classrooms. Through these discussions, Edwin and Harold realized
that someone needed to create a wax crayon for students
that would be affordable and safe. Now, I want to
be really really clear here. It is not as if
it was a black and white world with no access
to colored art supplies before this. Uh. Pigment combined with
bees wax and used for acoustic painting alone dates back
(09:50):
literally thousands of years, and the word crayon has been
in use all the way back to the sixteen hundreds
to describe a number of different pignant impregnated writing and
drawing elements. Pastel's had been around and used by artists
for centuries, and the conte crayon made the play and
graphite was invented in the late seventeen hundreds. I looked
up crayon in the Oxford English Dictionary. Wow, you were
(10:14):
working on this episode, and was delighted to find all
the very old historical examples of the use of the
word crayon in print, and some of them are like
really snarky commentary on other people's drawing skills. I was
super happy about that. Wax crayons made for children are
on record in the later half of the nineteenth century,
(10:34):
paralleling the kindergarten movement in the United States, there were
multiple companies turning out products aimed at young artists. So
at the time when Edwin Binny and Harold Smith were
putting together their idea for a crayon, it was not
exactly the eureka moment that some histories on Crayola might suggest. Yeah,
they really do tend to get all the credit for
(10:57):
inventing crayons, And again they did make a really great product,
but they were not the first people to think about
doing something like this. But the Eastern Pennsylvania Smith and
Benny plant was already making stay on all crayons using
wax and carbon black, and that was an inexpensive product,
both to produce and to sell. So the formula was
(11:17):
tweaked a little bit to make colored crayons instead of
the industrial black ones by mixing new pigments that were
safer for children with liquid paraffin, and what's now a
childhood classic was indeed born. There's also talk that was
and still is in the mix for texture. What Benny
and Smith crayons had that others didn't was consistency of
product at a low cost. Crayons before Crayola weren't always
(11:40):
effective at putting color on paper, which is the point
of crayons. Some that were available also contained potentially dangerous cackles.
Even Benny and Smith stay on. All crayons which were aimed,
as we mentioned at an industrial market, contained way too
much carbon to be child safe. That's the fact that
it was meant to be a permanent mark on things.
Not so great for children. The coloring crayons that produced
(12:03):
vibrant shades were really marketed to artists and were priced
a lot too high for elementary school use. To give
the coloring implements their shape, the Benny and Smith paraffin
mix that they created was poured into molds while it
was still liquid. Then it was allowed to cool and solidify. Uh.
That process nowadays takes between four and seven and a
half minutes uh if my recart reading was correct. And
(12:26):
then that resulting crayon was popped out of the mold
and was wrapped with paper by hand. At this point,
the name of this new product was named Crayola by
Alice Benny was Edwin's wife and a former school teacher herself,
portmanteau of the French word for chalk, which is crap
and the beginning of the word oleaginous, which means oily
or waxy. The first boxes of crayolas were sold both
(12:49):
in schools and door to door, and the low price point,
which was a nickel for a box of eight and
a little bit more for larger assortments, really appealed to consumers.
But the first big customer of Benny and Smith crayons
was actually the US government. Creole as were bought in
bulk with federal funds and sent to Native American reservations.
Another gold medal at a World Expo came to Benny
(13:10):
and Smith in nineteen o four and St. Louis. This
time it was the dust less chalk that earned them honors.
Over the next seventeen years, the company stayed in the
creola business, but Benny and Smith continued to branch out
into new products, including several pigment loaded lines that were
targeted to find artists. They developed a paint line called Arista,
(13:30):
the crayola Ruben's line, and a fine art crayon that
could be sharpened called Perma Pressed also joined their catalog.
The Great Depression was a rough time for the company,
but not for the reasons that you might expect. In
terms of finances, that survived, and it even ingratiated itself
to the community surrounding the Eastern plant by hiring out
of work farmers to apply the paper wrappers to create
(13:51):
all a products. Yeah, that was like a great um
PR move for them, even though I don't get the
vibe that they were just doing it for PR. They
really were trying to help the community and give people
kind of a way to keep their families fed and
and keep their homes going when they were really struggling otherwise.
But it ended up being one of those things that
people in the community talked about for a long time,
(14:13):
and it always kind of put a halo on Binney
and Smith. But early on in the depression, Harold Smith
died and his longtime business partner and friends survived him
for only three years. So Edwin Binney died in ninety four.
And while the loss of both of the namesake founders
of Binney and Smith was undoubtedly devastating, the company was
(14:36):
so solid and they had really really carefully set it
up to just kind of be a well oiled machine
that it not only survived, it actually thrived. While the
roots of Binan Smith Incorporated and the Peak Scale Chemical
Works before it were always based in pigment. Another key
driver was always the education market. The company founded the
(14:57):
Crayon Watercolor and Craft and WHOT along with other industry leaders,
is a way to promote and ensure high safety standards
and creative materials. The Crayon Watercolor and Craft Institute still exists,
although it has changed names twice since it began in
nineteen thirty six. In the nineteen eighties it became the
Art and Crafts Materials Institute, and then in two thousand
(15:18):
it changed to the Art and Creative Materials Institute, and
for the last seven decades, this group that was once
started by the Bennean Smith Company and other partners, has
certified non toxic art supply products through toxicity testing. The
offerings of Benny and Smith's Crayola products grew so numerous
that it became increasingly important to the company to have
(15:39):
a line of communication to educators about their art supply.
A teacher training program was instituted in night to offer
teachers in school workshops to showcase the many uses and
techniques for the various items in the company's collections. Was
a brilliant way to sell the education market on Benny
and Smith's supplies. Yeah, it's one of those things. When
(16:00):
you look at even boxes now, they usually have some
tout on them that say, like the most recommended by teachers.
But I think a lot of that really just has
to do with the fact that they have from almost
day one just kind of ingrained themselves in the mindset
of educators and like always kind of been there as
a resource and and really fostered this relationship. And as
(16:23):
crayole as became a standard part of childhood creativity, larger
and larger boxes of crayons were offered. The forty eight
count box hit the market in nineteen forty nine, and
nine years later the sixty four count box was introduced.
And I remember as a kid being so enthralled with
that sharpener that was built into the sixty four count box.
I was so excited for sharp crayons all the time. Uh.
(16:44):
And in one of the first of those sixty four
count boxes with the sharpener was given to the National
Museum of American History. The nineteen fifties and sixties had
many more growth mile stands for Benny and Smith. In
nineteen fifty two, a new plant was a bend in
Kansas to keep up with demand. It became a publicly
held company in nineteen sixty one and joined the American
(17:06):
Stock Exchange two years later. That shifted over to the
New York Stock Exchange in nineteen seventy eight, almost one
hundred years after Joseph Binny had moved his operation to
New York City. The corporate offices for Smith and Benny
were moved to Forks Township in eastern Pennsylvania in nineteen
seventy six. In nineteen eighty four, the company was purchased
(17:26):
and became a subsidiary of Hallmark, and in two thousand seven,
Minny and Smith changed names to Crayola LLC. This is
a pretty natural transition because the company had unified all
of its children's products under the Crayola label in nineteen
seventy nine. The one hundred billion Crayola crayon was produced
in nineteen ninety six. Two years after that in Crayola
(17:47):
crayons were inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame.
In two thousand eleven, Edwin Benny was added to the
National Inventors Hall of Fame, not for his crayons, but
for his work with carbon black and we are going
to talk just a little bit about Crayola colors and
modern Crayon production. But before we do that, let's pause
for a quick word from another one of our great sponsors.
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(19:16):
off your first purchase. While you'll see various numbers bandied
about when people mentioned how many different colors of Crayola
crayons have been manufactured throughout the years, what that number
really reflects is color names. There have been many instances
where the same exact color has changed names or even
been produced with two or more different names, depending on
(19:36):
the assortment that it's packaged with. According to crayon collector
and historian Ed welter By, the company had produced three
one unique colors, but had issued crayons under seven hundred
and fifty nine names. Yeah, that's a lot of name changes.
So when you see any like articles that are like
they've made more than six hundred colors, it's like, that's
(19:56):
not entirely correct. Uhions Smith actually retired eight of the
Crayola colors, but two consumer groups formed to protest the move.
One was called the RUMPS or the Raw Number and
Maze Preservation Society, and the other was called Crayons UH
the Committee to re Establish All Your old norms. So
clearly they were a little bit in fun, but they
(20:18):
really were sad to see these colors go. And their
chagrin at these retired colors did not go unheard by
Crayola's makers, who were astute in terms of business, and
they produced a special retro collection featuring the retired colors
in a collectible tin for the holiday season. So they
were retired. They came back the same year, but then
(20:39):
they were officially retired. An you want to see what
I just pulled out of the crayon dra Yes, it
is the retired Boxola retired. These eight colors of the
Crayola Crayon Hall of Fame ranges yellow, raw, umber, green, blue, maize, blue, gray, orange, red,
violet blue, and lemon yellow. I love it. I also
(21:04):
have the tin fascinated. Another reason that some colors have
been renamed over the years, that's some of the bonikers
were attached to outdated cultural contexts. For example, the color
once called Indian red eventually became chestnut. Crayola, though has
stated that this name was referencing the country of India,
but it still changed. The name. Flesh is now peach
(21:26):
because not everyone's flesh just that color really no one's flesh,
just that color. Uh, And Prussian blue became Midnight blue
because Bennie and Smith realized that children did not know
what Prussia was. Yeah, so some of them have maybe
been cultural sensitivity, but others have just been that, you know,
the cultural touchstones have changed enough that people don't always
(21:47):
recognize the the point of naming things for Prussia and
other places. They've also had various like contests over the
years where people got to name colors, and the color
story of cre Eola could be like seventeen episodes on
its own, which is why I didn't get super deep
into it. We could get in the weeds really really quickly.
(22:07):
Today Creola production involves a lot more automation and industrial
machinery than it did in nineteen o three. An average
day at the factory requires about seventeen thousand gallons of
paraffin wax, and the molds are filled via tube system
and the wrappers are now applied by a machine instead
of by hand, but the process itself is still pretty
much the same. Several billion crayons are made by Creola
(22:31):
each year. They're sold in more than eighty countries, with
packaging and twelve languages, and Creola has significantly diversified their
product line, both through development of new products and through
acquisitions over the years. For example, Silly Putty and Liquid
Text have been in a Bidian Smith Creola family, although
liquid Tex I believe was sold off Magic markers required
(22:51):
by Creola. That like, there's so many standard kind of
uh elementary school art supplies and even and art supplies
aimed at an older market that you know and love,
that have all been up under the umbrella of Bidian
Smith at some point. I have some Creola colored pencils
in the drawer too. Yep. The company has made washable crayons,
(23:14):
washable markers, colored pencils which I just said, a modeling
compound called Model Magic, and another favorite glitter crayons under
the collection name glitter Roddy. I'm gonna tell you also
in the crayon drawer Crayola Silver Swirls, which are an
older version of the Glittery crayons. Of people are gonna
know way too much about my crayon drawer situation now.
(23:38):
They've also been loads of other products, I mean, just
so many, way too many to mention everyone individually, and
there have also been licensed closed software, toys, even house paint.
There is a Crayola Christmas ornament that hangs on our
Christmas tree every year. It is like, I think a
mouse driving a car, but the car is made out
of a box of Crayola crayons. I have to say,
(23:58):
I feel almost guilty that I did this one because
I had no idea you had this depth of Crayola love. Well,
to be candid, it would not have occurred to me
to do it, So I'm glad that you did. It's
actually been on my list for a long time. And
then I got to talking about the possible ability of
(24:19):
doing it with a friend recently, and then I was like, oh,
we've had so much like kind of you know, rough
stuff that I'm going to do a very light and
fun a story went. I think our number of sad
episodes has not been all that atypical lately, but the
gravity of the sad episodes has been particularly plus we've
(24:41):
been in winter, which is a little you know, dul
dromy and uh. Even though so far in Georgia the
winter has been fairly mild, I don't know if it
will stay that way or not. It's still just been
kind of you know overcasting the so I thought something
colorful would be delightful for the dinner. We've had some
snow in Boston lately, but knock on wood, so far,
(25:02):
not enough to really hamper a lot besides canceling school
and stuff. Do you have listener mail? I do have
listener man Heil. This one is related to our very
recent podcast on the Piata, and it comes from our listener, Alexandra.
She says, Dear Holly and Tracy, I am an American
artist living in Florence, Italy for about two and a
half years, and I've been listening to you guys for
(25:24):
just about that long. Your voices have been a constant
in my studio while I'm painting and are an endless
source of inspiration keep my mind busy while my hands
are on autopilot. I will start off by giving you
a huge thank you for all your great work. Thank you.
That's so sweet to say. I'm honored that an artist
would listen to us while creating things. She says, I
always get super excited when you guys have topics about Europe,
royal dynasties and of course anything Italian. However, when you
(25:46):
guys have subjects relating to art, I just about lose
my mind. This past episode about Lapieta just about tipped
me over the edge. As Michelangelo is one of my
city's heroes. He may not be my favorite artist, but
his prolific body of work is astounding, his temperament, legendary,
and ideas at that time progressive. I personally find his
personal academic pursuit of human anatomy criminally exciting, as he
(26:08):
was known to have broken into morgues in the dead
of night to dissect corpses to understand how our muscles
and bones fit together. I studied anatomy as well when
I was in undergrad So michel angelo Is apparent understanding
of the body's mechanics mixed with the artist's i for
proportion and scale is an endless point of fascination when
I visit his works. Michel Angelo's version of the Pieta
and the Vatican maybe one of his more globally admired pieces. However,
(26:32):
due to personal opinion and probable geographical bias, his version
in Florence at the end of his very long life
and career is my favorite. Many people seem to dismiss
it as unfinished, but I see it as a raw
interpretation of his artistic vision, unhindered by pursuit of religious interpretation,
without pressure from politics and patronage. Unlike La Pieta in Rome,
(26:52):
the sculpture in Florence, uh the marble medium is not
hidden behind Polish realism and can be interpreted as the
earthen material that keep man chained to the ground and
the bodies that he erected from the stone as humans
instinctual want to reach beauty and purity. I find this
explanation in tune with Nicelangelo's humanistic beliefs and societal reference
as a Renaissance witness to a world recovering from years
(27:14):
in the Middle Ages. Other similar references to the artists
unfinished work of figures fighting their way off beautiful cuts
of marble can be seen at Galeria del Academia in Florence.
As to the mysterious figure that rises in the posterior
of the sculpture, I always related it to a sort
of embrace and acceptance of death, illuming yet not entirely
unwelcome figure that is comparable to a few artists works
(27:35):
such as Goya's Black paintings, A bleaker example that are
lucky enough to have lived long enough to visually contemplate
their impending in It's a bit morbid, but at the
same time a very peaceful way to accept an inevitable truth. Anyways,
on a lighter note, I have a quick story about
when my lovely Italian partner saw La Pieta in Rome
as a child. Can you imagine growing up around all
that history. After his little feet had been dragged all
(27:58):
over Rome finishing at the Vatican, he has taken to
the foot of michel Angelo's work, and, much to his
mother's chagrin, in the amusement of surrounding tourists, yelled, you
took me all the way here to make me see
this piece of rock. Uh. I love that story. It's
so lovely. Alexandra and she Um also sent us a
link to a series of paintings that she did inspired
by the Empress City episode that was before Tracy and
(28:21):
I were doing episodes, and it is absolutely lovely, beautiful work.
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts. I like
getting an artist's perspective on the art that we talk about,
because while I love art, I'm not creating art at
that level all the time. You know, I'm stitching, but
it's not the same thing. So I really really appreciate
you sharing that with us, Alexandra Uh. If you would
like to write us, you can do so a history
(28:42):
podcast at house to works dot com. We're also at
Facebook dot com, slash mist in history, on Twitter at
mist in History, at pinterest dot com, slash mist in
History at mist in history dot tumbler dot com, and
we're on Instagram at mist in History. If you would
like to research look more deeply into what we talked
talked about today, you can go to our parents site,
how Stuff Works. Type in the word crayola or the
(29:04):
word crayon in the search bar, and you're gonna have
so much the so much to entertain you throughout your day,
including there's a really cool video in there about modern
crayon productions. You can actually see how the the Crayola
plants chareing out crayons now. And if you want to
visit us online, you can do so at missed in
history dot com and we have all of the episodes
(29:25):
archived all the way back to the very beginning, way
before me and Tracy were here, and you can get
show notes from any of the episodes Tracy and I
have worked on, as well as occasional other goodies. So
visit us at how stop works dot com and missed
in History dot com For more on this and thousands
of other topics hot works dot com.
Welcome to Stuff You missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Polly Fine, I'm Traycyvie Wilson, and we have a
legitimately thought sad an all story today. Hey, Tracy, have
(00:21):
you got men on this whole trend of adult coloring
that's all the rage. I have not personally bought any
of them, but I am aware of it. And one
of the things that I've seen happening on the tumbler
that we have in the tumbler dash word where I
see all the tumbler stuff that we follow is museum
collections issuing things from their collection as coloring pages were
(00:43):
grown ups. Yeah, they did a big social media push
called color Our Collections where a lot of them. You
search that hashtag, you will find stuff all over Twitter,
and they're sharing each other's collections in many cases like
they're linking to each other. But this sudden boom and
coloring books and coloring products aimed at the adult market
has been really fun to watch. But to me, one
of the most fascinating aspects of it has been watching
(01:05):
the delight with which my friends have been purchasing new
crayons to color. With a true confession, I did too. No,
I have not bought new crayons because there is a
literal drawer full of crayons directly next to me, like
there's there are hundreds of crayons and this draor next
to me right now. Well, it's funny because I have
(01:25):
a lot of friends who are artists, and um, you know,
plenty of them have really fancy pants unicorn type art tools.
But even so a lot of them have bought new
crayons to color, and coloring books with which I just
find fabulous, were attached to crayons. And the unique paraffine
smell of crayons was actually once ranked number eighteen on
a list of twenty cents that American adults most readily recognized.
(01:48):
That was part of a Yale University study some years ago.
And so we're talking about crayons today, and while Crayola
is not the only brand of crayons, it's certainly the
most ubiquitous, at least here in the US. So we're
focusing on the Crayolas story. We no shade thrown to
Rose Art or Dixon Ticonderoga, which makes praying crayons or
any of the other companies that produce crayons, but Crayola
(02:11):
is sort of the big one, uh, and they have
some interesting stuff. We're gonna talk about how they're often
they often get all the credit for inventing crayons. There
were things that were similar already in existence. We're going
to talk about that some. But that's the scoop. We're
gonna talk about the Creola story today, and so it's
a little lighter. There's no big tragedies. I'm happy to
(02:31):
report ahead of time. I hope that's not a spoiler
for people, but we've had a lot of dark stuff,
so I thought we we might enjoy. The closest to
a tragedy is that this story starts a while ago,
so that people involved are deceased. But that's really that's
not tragic so much as it's just gonna happen, so
it was starting at the beginning. Joseph Benny was born
(02:53):
in England on December six, eighteen thirty six, and he
moved to the United States in eighteen sixty. That same year,
his sister Eliza gave birth to a son named ce
Harold Smith uh and in eighteen sixty four, then twenty
eight year old Binny started a company called the Peak
Skill Chemical Works in Peakskill, New York. And this company
(03:13):
produced lamp black, which is a black pigment made from
soot or whale oil, and also produced hardwood charcoal for
heating fuel, which was ground and package there in the
Peak Skill facility. As his company was getting off the ground,
Benny was also starting a family. He and his new
bride Annie Eliza Conklin and there had their son, Edwin
on November eighteen sixty six. They would go on to
(03:37):
have seven more children. But we're mentioning these these individual
offspring because they're going to be pretty paramount as the
story goes on. So in eighteen eighty, Binny moved the
corporate office of the Peak Skill Chemical Works to New
York City to expand the business. And at that point
he hired his nephew, see Harold Smith, the one that
had been born to his sister Eliza, who was twenty
(03:59):
at the time, and went by Harold into a sales position.
And while he was still a teenager, Joseph Binny's own son,
Edwin Binney also joined the business, which was then renamed
the Peak Skill Chemical Company. It had been Peak Skill
Chemical works. Peak Skille Chemical expanded their offerings to include
a paint made with red iron oxide, and this was
an extremely popular product and Peaks Skill Chemicals Red paint
(04:22):
was used on many barns in the United States Northeast,
and though Joseph had expanded his business just five years prior,
in eighty five he retired and at that point his
son Edwyn and his nephew Harold, who had already proven
that they could work really, really well together, reformed the
company as partners under the name Binny and Smith. Benny
and Smith continued to grow the family business throughout the
(04:45):
late eighteen hundreds, they worked on the development of carbon black.
The pigment industry had been on a quest for a
black or black than lamp black for a long time,
and it appeared that Benny and Smith had finally found it, so,
as we said, even darker than lamp black. Carbon black
pigment is created by burning hydrocarbons in insufficient air. So
(05:05):
this is like the quickest and dirtiest of chemistry lessons.
But hydrocarbons are organic compounds that contain only hydrogen and carbon.
Common examples include methane, propane, butane, and octane because of
an abundance of natural gas deposits in Pennsylvania found in
the eighteen eighties. Benny and Smith used that discovery to
their advantage as they worked on the development of carbon black,
(05:28):
and Edwin Benny held the patent for a carbon black
manufacture apparatus starting in That patent number is four five three.
You can still look it up and we'll actually have
a link to it in the show notes, and he
wrote in his patent application quote, the objects of my
invention are to manufacture lamp black from oil in an
improved and economical manner, whereby waste of the product and
(05:50):
unnecessary expenditure of labor are avoided, And to manufacture carbon
black from gas in such a manner as to obtain
an improved quality of black, which will have the soft,
flaky texture of lamp black and the superior color of
carbon black made in the ordinary ways. We really cannot
overstate how big carbon black was. Not only does it
(06:10):
serve as a pigment, but it's also used as a
strengthening filler and rubber, and it was a big part
of solidifying Smith and Benny's success. In nineteen eleven alone,
B F. Goodrich ordered one million pounds of carbon black
for tire production. Eventually, carbon black would become a standard
component of car tires. Yeah, you may or may not
have noticed when you look at old pictures that a
(06:32):
lot of times the tires on cars were white, uh,
and then sometimes gray, And that was because those are
before carbon black became the standard. And as the turn
of the century approached, the business partner cousins were looking
for new ways to expand their business even more would
prove to be a really big year for them. They
opened a new mill in eastern Pennsylvania and they began
(06:53):
making slate school pencils there. This was actually a water
mill where they were grinding this late down and one
of the reasons for this move was a proximity to
slate minds. It made it cheaper to produce these pencils
as there was not as much overhead attached to the
transportation of the slate. They were really close by. This
move into the pencil market was a significant moment for
(07:14):
them because it started their connection to classroom supply. That
area of their business would be along lasting one. It
goes right into today's schools and it was lucrative as well.
And in addition to the new branch of the business,
UHD also featured a trip to an event that we've
referenced a few times in various episodes, which is the
Paris Exposition. Uh and Benny and Smith went and the
(07:37):
pair entered their company's black pigments into the industrial chemistry
competition at the expo and they won a gold medal
for them. In two Benny and Smith had another year
of significant growth. The company started producing a product that
still made today, the Stay on All crayon, which makes
a permanent wax mark on most services and is used
primarily in industrial applications. It's a simple a nation of
(08:00):
carbon black pigment along with paraffin. It replaced the company's
previous product intended for industrial marking needs, which was called
Eclipse Marking Inc. Yeah, that was like a liquid inc.
And this just made it so much easier because people
could hold it in their hands and it wouldn't fall
apart and they could just be marking on packages or
boxes or whatever. Production of dust less chalk also began
(08:21):
that same year for use in classrooms, and this was
created in response to teachers complaining about the steady layer
of dust chalk that was created in normal use and
the crumbling nature of most available chalks, So and Do Septic,
which was their trade name. Dustless chalk, was created through
an extrusion process that added I've seen it listed in
(08:43):
quotes weight. I don't know the actual chemistry involved to
the particles of chalk, so it made them less likely
to hover in the air, and they also just stuck
together better. N two was also the year that the
company officially incorporated. At this point, it was not only
producing its own pigment product, but also serving as an
international distributor for other companies that produced carbon black. And
(09:06):
we're about to get to a really pivotal year for
Binny and Smith. But before that, let's pause and have
a word from one of our fantastic sponsors. In nine
oh three, Harold in particular, was still talking to teachers
about the needs of the classroom. He often traveled to
schools to try to sell pencils and chalk, and he
made a point to listen to the teachers when they
spoke about what sources of supplies they'd like to have
(09:28):
in their classrooms. Through these discussions, Edwin and Harold realized
that someone needed to create a wax crayon for students
that would be affordable and safe. Now, I want to
be really really clear here. It is not as if
it was a black and white world with no access
to colored art supplies before this. Uh. Pigment combined with
bees wax and used for acoustic painting alone dates back
(09:50):
literally thousands of years, and the word crayon has been
in use all the way back to the sixteen hundreds
to describe a number of different pignant impregnated writing and
drawing elements. Pastel's had been around and used by artists
for centuries, and the conte crayon made the play and
graphite was invented in the late seventeen hundreds. I looked
up crayon in the Oxford English Dictionary. Wow, you were
(10:14):
working on this episode, and was delighted to find all
the very old historical examples of the use of the
word crayon in print, and some of them are like
really snarky commentary on other people's drawing skills. I was
super happy about that. Wax crayons made for children are
on record in the later half of the nineteenth century,
(10:34):
paralleling the kindergarten movement in the United States, there were
multiple companies turning out products aimed at young artists. So
at the time when Edwin Binny and Harold Smith were
putting together their idea for a crayon, it was not
exactly the eureka moment that some histories on Crayola might suggest. Yeah,
they really do tend to get all the credit for
(10:57):
inventing crayons, And again they did make a really great product,
but they were not the first people to think about
doing something like this. But the Eastern Pennsylvania Smith and
Benny plant was already making stay on all crayons using
wax and carbon black, and that was an inexpensive product,
both to produce and to sell. So the formula was
(11:17):
tweaked a little bit to make colored crayons instead of
the industrial black ones by mixing new pigments that were
safer for children with liquid paraffin, and what's now a
childhood classic was indeed born. There's also talk that was
and still is in the mix for texture. What Benny
and Smith crayons had that others didn't was consistency of
product at a low cost. Crayons before Crayola weren't always
(11:40):
effective at putting color on paper, which is the point
of crayons. Some that were available also contained potentially dangerous cackles.
Even Benny and Smith stay on. All crayons which were aimed,
as we mentioned at an industrial market, contained way too
much carbon to be child safe. That's the fact that
it was meant to be a permanent mark on things.
Not so great for children. The coloring crayons that produced
(12:03):
vibrant shades were really marketed to artists and were priced
a lot too high for elementary school use. To give
the coloring implements their shape, the Benny and Smith paraffin
mix that they created was poured into molds while it
was still liquid. Then it was allowed to cool and solidify. Uh.
That process nowadays takes between four and seven and a
half minutes uh if my recart reading was correct. And
(12:26):
then that resulting crayon was popped out of the mold
and was wrapped with paper by hand. At this point,
the name of this new product was named Crayola by
Alice Benny was Edwin's wife and a former school teacher herself,
portmanteau of the French word for chalk, which is crap
and the beginning of the word oleaginous, which means oily
or waxy. The first boxes of crayolas were sold both
(12:49):
in schools and door to door, and the low price point,
which was a nickel for a box of eight and
a little bit more for larger assortments, really appealed to consumers.
But the first big customer of Benny and Smith crayons
was actually the US government. Creole as were bought in
bulk with federal funds and sent to Native American reservations.
Another gold medal at a World Expo came to Benny
(13:10):
and Smith in nineteen o four and St. Louis. This
time it was the dust less chalk that earned them honors.
Over the next seventeen years, the company stayed in the
creola business, but Benny and Smith continued to branch out
into new products, including several pigment loaded lines that were
targeted to find artists. They developed a paint line called Arista,
(13:30):
the crayola Ruben's line, and a fine art crayon that
could be sharpened called Perma Pressed also joined their catalog.
The Great Depression was a rough time for the company,
but not for the reasons that you might expect. In
terms of finances, that survived, and it even ingratiated itself
to the community surrounding the Eastern plant by hiring out
of work farmers to apply the paper wrappers to create
(13:51):
all a products. Yeah, that was like a great um
PR move for them, even though I don't get the
vibe that they were just doing it for PR. They
really were trying to help the community and give people
kind of a way to keep their families fed and
and keep their homes going when they were really struggling otherwise.
But it ended up being one of those things that
people in the community talked about for a long time,
(14:13):
and it always kind of put a halo on Binney
and Smith. But early on in the depression, Harold Smith
died and his longtime business partner and friends survived him
for only three years. So Edwin Binney died in ninety four.
And while the loss of both of the namesake founders
of Binney and Smith was undoubtedly devastating, the company was
(14:36):
so solid and they had really really carefully set it
up to just kind of be a well oiled machine
that it not only survived, it actually thrived. While the
roots of Binan Smith Incorporated and the Peak Scale Chemical
Works before it were always based in pigment. Another key
driver was always the education market. The company founded the
(14:57):
Crayon Watercolor and Craft and WHOT along with other industry leaders,
is a way to promote and ensure high safety standards
and creative materials. The Crayon Watercolor and Craft Institute still exists,
although it has changed names twice since it began in
nineteen thirty six. In the nineteen eighties it became the
Art and Crafts Materials Institute, and then in two thousand
(15:18):
it changed to the Art and Creative Materials Institute, and
for the last seven decades, this group that was once
started by the Bennean Smith Company and other partners, has
certified non toxic art supply products through toxicity testing. The
offerings of Benny and Smith's Crayola products grew so numerous
that it became increasingly important to the company to have
(15:39):
a line of communication to educators about their art supply.
A teacher training program was instituted in night to offer
teachers in school workshops to showcase the many uses and
techniques for the various items in the company's collections. Was
a brilliant way to sell the education market on Benny
and Smith's supplies. Yeah, it's one of those things. When
(16:00):
you look at even boxes now, they usually have some
tout on them that say, like the most recommended by teachers.
But I think a lot of that really just has
to do with the fact that they have from almost
day one just kind of ingrained themselves in the mindset
of educators and like always kind of been there as
a resource and and really fostered this relationship. And as
(16:23):
crayole as became a standard part of childhood creativity, larger
and larger boxes of crayons were offered. The forty eight
count box hit the market in nineteen forty nine, and
nine years later the sixty four count box was introduced.
And I remember as a kid being so enthralled with
that sharpener that was built into the sixty four count box.
I was so excited for sharp crayons all the time. Uh.
(16:44):
And in one of the first of those sixty four
count boxes with the sharpener was given to the National
Museum of American History. The nineteen fifties and sixties had
many more growth mile stands for Benny and Smith. In
nineteen fifty two, a new plant was a bend in
Kansas to keep up with demand. It became a publicly
held company in nineteen sixty one and joined the American
(17:06):
Stock Exchange two years later. That shifted over to the
New York Stock Exchange in nineteen seventy eight, almost one
hundred years after Joseph Binny had moved his operation to
New York City. The corporate offices for Smith and Benny
were moved to Forks Township in eastern Pennsylvania in nineteen
seventy six. In nineteen eighty four, the company was purchased
(17:26):
and became a subsidiary of Hallmark, and in two thousand seven,
Minny and Smith changed names to Crayola LLC. This is
a pretty natural transition because the company had unified all
of its children's products under the Crayola label in nineteen
seventy nine. The one hundred billion Crayola crayon was produced
in nineteen ninety six. Two years after that in Crayola
(17:47):
crayons were inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame.
In two thousand eleven, Edwin Benny was added to the
National Inventors Hall of Fame, not for his crayons, but
for his work with carbon black and we are going
to talk just a little bit about Crayola colors and
modern Crayon production. But before we do that, let's pause
for a quick word from another one of our great sponsors.
(18:09):
So we've talked about how I have found it nearly
effortless to make a wedding website on Squarespace. I am
actually progressing to the next step of that, which is
discovering that there is limited room on the pretty wedding
stationary to put things like directions to the venue, and
so instead I am gonna be building that out some more.
(18:32):
It is so easy, It takes so little time. It
is super intuitive to make the thing look exactly what
I want, so many options to choose from, so many
really lovely designs to do exactly what you want them
to do. Uh, and then lots of different ways to
just make it look cool and personalized, even though you're
working with a company that's setting it up for you
(18:53):
in an easy to use interface. So you get a
website that looks professionally designed regardless of your skill level,
with no be required. Intuitive they're easy to use tools.
You can get a free domain if you sign up
for a year, which I did. That was awesome and
You can start your free trial today at squarespace dot com.
When you decide to sign up for Squarespace, make sure
to use the offer code history to get ten percent
(19:16):
off your first purchase. While you'll see various numbers bandied
about when people mentioned how many different colors of Crayola
crayons have been manufactured throughout the years, what that number
really reflects is color names. There have been many instances
where the same exact color has changed names or even
been produced with two or more different names, depending on
(19:36):
the assortment that it's packaged with. According to crayon collector
and historian Ed welter By, the company had produced three
one unique colors, but had issued crayons under seven hundred
and fifty nine names. Yeah, that's a lot of name changes.
So when you see any like articles that are like
they've made more than six hundred colors, it's like, that's
(19:56):
not entirely correct. Uhions Smith actually retired eight of the
Crayola colors, but two consumer groups formed to protest the move.
One was called the RUMPS or the Raw Number and
Maze Preservation Society, and the other was called Crayons UH
the Committee to re Establish All Your old norms. So
clearly they were a little bit in fun, but they
(20:18):
really were sad to see these colors go. And their
chagrin at these retired colors did not go unheard by
Crayola's makers, who were astute in terms of business, and
they produced a special retro collection featuring the retired colors
in a collectible tin for the holiday season. So they
were retired. They came back the same year, but then
(20:39):
they were officially retired. An you want to see what
I just pulled out of the crayon dra Yes, it
is the retired Boxola retired. These eight colors of the
Crayola Crayon Hall of Fame ranges yellow, raw, umber, green, blue, maize, blue, gray, orange, red,
violet blue, and lemon yellow. I love it. I also
(21:04):
have the tin fascinated. Another reason that some colors have
been renamed over the years, that's some of the bonikers
were attached to outdated cultural contexts. For example, the color
once called Indian red eventually became chestnut. Crayola, though has
stated that this name was referencing the country of India,
but it still changed. The name. Flesh is now peach
(21:26):
because not everyone's flesh just that color really no one's flesh,
just that color. Uh, And Prussian blue became Midnight blue
because Bennie and Smith realized that children did not know
what Prussia was. Yeah, so some of them have maybe
been cultural sensitivity, but others have just been that, you know,
the cultural touchstones have changed enough that people don't always
(21:47):
recognize the the point of naming things for Prussia and
other places. They've also had various like contests over the
years where people got to name colors, and the color
story of cre Eola could be like seventeen episodes on
its own, which is why I didn't get super deep
into it. We could get in the weeds really really quickly.
(22:07):
Today Creola production involves a lot more automation and industrial
machinery than it did in nineteen o three. An average
day at the factory requires about seventeen thousand gallons of
paraffin wax, and the molds are filled via tube system
and the wrappers are now applied by a machine instead
of by hand, but the process itself is still pretty
much the same. Several billion crayons are made by Creola
(22:31):
each year. They're sold in more than eighty countries, with
packaging and twelve languages, and Creola has significantly diversified their
product line, both through development of new products and through
acquisitions over the years. For example, Silly Putty and Liquid
Text have been in a Bidian Smith Creola family, although
liquid Tex I believe was sold off Magic markers required
(22:51):
by Creola. That like, there's so many standard kind of
uh elementary school art supplies and even and art supplies
aimed at an older market that you know and love,
that have all been up under the umbrella of Bidian
Smith at some point. I have some Creola colored pencils
in the drawer too. Yep. The company has made washable crayons,
(23:14):
washable markers, colored pencils which I just said, a modeling
compound called Model Magic, and another favorite glitter crayons under
the collection name glitter Roddy. I'm gonna tell you also
in the crayon drawer Crayola Silver Swirls, which are an
older version of the Glittery crayons. Of people are gonna
know way too much about my crayon drawer situation now.
(23:38):
They've also been loads of other products, I mean, just
so many, way too many to mention everyone individually, and
there have also been licensed closed software, toys, even house paint.
There is a Crayola Christmas ornament that hangs on our
Christmas tree every year. It is like, I think a
mouse driving a car, but the car is made out
of a box of Crayola crayons. I have to say,
(23:58):
I feel almost guilty that I did this one because
I had no idea you had this depth of Crayola love. Well,
to be candid, it would not have occurred to me
to do it, So I'm glad that you did. It's
actually been on my list for a long time. And
then I got to talking about the possible ability of
(24:19):
doing it with a friend recently, and then I was like, oh,
we've had so much like kind of you know, rough
stuff that I'm going to do a very light and
fun a story went. I think our number of sad
episodes has not been all that atypical lately, but the
gravity of the sad episodes has been particularly plus we've
(24:41):
been in winter, which is a little you know, dul
dromy and uh. Even though so far in Georgia the
winter has been fairly mild, I don't know if it
will stay that way or not. It's still just been
kind of you know overcasting the so I thought something
colorful would be delightful for the dinner. We've had some
snow in Boston lately, but knock on wood, so far,
(25:02):
not enough to really hamper a lot besides canceling school
and stuff. Do you have listener mail? I do have
listener man Heil. This one is related to our very
recent podcast on the Piata, and it comes from our listener, Alexandra.
She says, Dear Holly and Tracy, I am an American
artist living in Florence, Italy for about two and a
half years, and I've been listening to you guys for
(25:24):
just about that long. Your voices have been a constant
in my studio while I'm painting and are an endless
source of inspiration keep my mind busy while my hands
are on autopilot. I will start off by giving you
a huge thank you for all your great work. Thank you.
That's so sweet to say. I'm honored that an artist
would listen to us while creating things. She says, I
always get super excited when you guys have topics about Europe,
royal dynasties and of course anything Italian. However, when you
(25:46):
guys have subjects relating to art, I just about lose
my mind. This past episode about Lapieta just about tipped
me over the edge. As Michelangelo is one of my
city's heroes. He may not be my favorite artist, but
his prolific body of work is astounding, his temperament, legendary,
and ideas at that time progressive. I personally find his
personal academic pursuit of human anatomy criminally exciting, as he
(26:08):
was known to have broken into morgues in the dead
of night to dissect corpses to understand how our muscles
and bones fit together. I studied anatomy as well when
I was in undergrad So michel angelo Is apparent understanding
of the body's mechanics mixed with the artist's i for
proportion and scale is an endless point of fascination when
I visit his works. Michel Angelo's version of the Pieta
and the Vatican maybe one of his more globally admired pieces. However,
(26:32):
due to personal opinion and probable geographical bias, his version
in Florence at the end of his very long life
and career is my favorite. Many people seem to dismiss
it as unfinished, but I see it as a raw
interpretation of his artistic vision, unhindered by pursuit of religious interpretation,
without pressure from politics and patronage. Unlike La Pieta in Rome,
(26:52):
the sculpture in Florence, uh the marble medium is not
hidden behind Polish realism and can be interpreted as the
earthen material that keep man chained to the ground and
the bodies that he erected from the stone as humans
instinctual want to reach beauty and purity. I find this
explanation in tune with Nicelangelo's humanistic beliefs and societal reference
as a Renaissance witness to a world recovering from years
(27:14):
in the Middle Ages. Other similar references to the artists
unfinished work of figures fighting their way off beautiful cuts
of marble can be seen at Galeria del Academia in Florence.
As to the mysterious figure that rises in the posterior
of the sculpture, I always related it to a sort
of embrace and acceptance of death, illuming yet not entirely
unwelcome figure that is comparable to a few artists works
(27:35):
such as Goya's Black paintings, A bleaker example that are
lucky enough to have lived long enough to visually contemplate
their impending in It's a bit morbid, but at the
same time a very peaceful way to accept an inevitable truth. Anyways,
on a lighter note, I have a quick story about
when my lovely Italian partner saw La Pieta in Rome
as a child. Can you imagine growing up around all
that history. After his little feet had been dragged all
(27:58):
over Rome finishing at the Vatican, he has taken to
the foot of michel Angelo's work, and, much to his
mother's chagrin, in the amusement of surrounding tourists, yelled, you
took me all the way here to make me see
this piece of rock. Uh. I love that story. It's
so lovely. Alexandra and she Um also sent us a
link to a series of paintings that she did inspired
by the Empress City episode that was before Tracy and
(28:21):
I were doing episodes, and it is absolutely lovely, beautiful work.
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts. I like
getting an artist's perspective on the art that we talk about,
because while I love art, I'm not creating art at
that level all the time. You know, I'm stitching, but
it's not the same thing. So I really really appreciate
you sharing that with us, Alexandra Uh. If you would
like to write us, you can do so a history
(28:42):
podcast at house to works dot com. We're also at
Facebook dot com, slash mist in history, on Twitter at
mist in History, at pinterest dot com, slash mist in
History at mist in history dot tumbler dot com, and
we're on Instagram at mist in History. If you would
like to research look more deeply into what we talked
talked about today, you can go to our parents site,
how Stuff Works. Type in the word crayola or the
(29:04):
word crayon in the search bar, and you're gonna have
so much the so much to entertain you throughout your day,
including there's a really cool video in there about modern
crayon productions. You can actually see how the the Crayola
plants chareing out crayons now. And if you want to
visit us online, you can do so at missed in
history dot com and we have all of the episodes
(29:25):
archived all the way back to the very beginning, way
before me and Tracy were here, and you can get
show notes from any of the episodes Tracy and I
have worked on, as well as occasional other goodies. So
visit us at how stop works dot com and missed
in History dot com For more on this and thousands
of other topics hot works dot com.
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Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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