Editing Crayon (section)

==History==
[[File:VariousCrayonBoxes.jpg|thumb|A wide variety of crayon boxes have been produced over the years.]]
The history of the crayon is not entirely clear. The [[French language|French]] word ''crayon'', originally meaning "chalk pencil", dates to around the 16th century, and is derived from the word ''craie'' (chalk), which comes from the [[Latin language|Latin]] word ''creta'' (Earth).<ref name="websters">{{cite book
|title=Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary
|publisher=Merriam-Webster, Inc
|edition=11th
|year=2004
|page=292
|isbn=0-87779-808-7
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=O78rzaI2XmUC&q=crayon+1644&pg=RA1-PA292}}</ref><ref name="hiskeytoday">{{cite web |last1=Hiskey |first1=Daven |title=Where the words "Crayola" and "Crayon" come from |url=http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2011/07/where-the-words-crayola-and-crayon-come-from/ |website=Today I Found Out |access-date=March 3, 2020 |date=July 1, 2011}}</ref> The meaning later changed to simply "pencil", which it still means in modern French.<ref name="hiskeytoday"/>

The notion to combine a form of wax with pigment goes back thousands of years. [[Encaustic painting]] is a technique that uses hot [[beeswax]] combined with colored pigment to bind color into stone. A heat source was then used to "burn in" and fix the image in place.<ref name="encaustic1">{{cite book
|title=Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians
|last=Wilkinson
|first=John
|publisher=A. Spottiswoode
|location=London
|volume=3
|edition=3rd
|year=1847
|page=110
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=X8YWAAAAQAAJ&q=encaustic+Egyptians&pg=PA110}}</ref> Pliny the Elder, a Roman scholar, was thought to describe the first techniques of wax crayon drawings.<ref name="Girdler, Reynolds 1967">Girdler, Reynolds. "Crayons in the History of the Arts." Art Education. 20.1 (January 1967): 30-32. Print.</ref>

This method, employed by the Egyptians, Romans, Greeks, and indigenous people in the [[Philippines]], is still used today. However, the process was not used to make crayons into a form intended to be held and colored with and was therefore ineffective for use in a classroom or as crafts for children.<ref name="encaustic2">{{cite book
|title=History and Methods of Ancient Modern Painting
|last=Ward
|first=James
|publisher=E.P. Dutton & Company
|location=New York, NY
|year=1914
|page=155
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yHZAAAAAYAAJ&q=encaustic&pg=RA1-PA155}}</ref>

Contemporary crayons are purported to have originated in Europe, where some of the first cylinder shaped crayons were made with charcoal and oil.<ref name="charcoal">{{cite web|url=http://www.crayola.com/mediacenter/HistoryOfCrayons.doc |title=Crayola Web Site – History of Crayons |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100409022027/http://www.crayola.com/mediacenter/HistoryOfCrayons.doc |archive-date=April 9, 2010 }}</ref> Pastels are an art medium sharing roots with the modern crayon and date back to [[Leonardo da Vinci]] in 1495. [[Conté]] crayons, out of Paris, are a hybrid between a pastel and a conventional crayon, used since the late 1790s as a drawing crayon for artists.<ref name="conte">{{cite web
| url = http://jeanvincent.com/conte-invention.htm
| title = Nicolas Conte and the Invention of Conte Crayons
| access-date = 2010-03-01
| archive-date = 2020-10-03
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20201003054714/http://jeanvincent.com/conte-invention.htm
| url-status = dead
}}</ref> Later, various hues of powdered pigment eventually replaced the primary charcoal ingredient found in most early 19th century products. References to crayons in literature appear as early as 1813 in Jane Austen's ''Pride and Prejudice''. French lithographer {{ill|Joseph Lemercier|fr|Joseph-Rose Lemercier}} was also one of the inventors of the modern crayon. Through his Paris business circa 1828, he produced a variety of crayon and color related products.<ref name="Lemercier">{{cite book
|title=Encyclopædia Britannica
|last=Baynes
|first=Thomas
|volume=14
|publisher=Henry G. Allen & Company
|location=New York, NY
|year=1888
|page=698
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lqMMAAAAYAAJ&q=Lithography+Lemercier&pg=PA698}}</ref> But even as those in Europe were discovering that substituting wax for the oil strengthened the crayon, various efforts in the United States were also developing.

[[File:Dixon Crayon Ad.jpg|thumb|right|300px|Early Dixon crayon ad from August 1901]]
The initial era of wax crayons saw several companies and products competing for the lucrative education and artist markets. The Franklin Mfg. Co, founded in 1876 in [[Rochester, New York]], was one of the first companies to make and sell wax crayons, and in 1883 they appeared with a display of crayons at the [[World's Columbian Exposition]] that year.<ref name="FranklinExpo">{{cite book
|title=World's Columbian Exposition – Official Catalog
|last=Smith
|first=Willard
|volume=7
|publisher=W. B. Conkey Company
|location=Chicago, IL
|year=1883
|page=23
|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=pz41AAAAMAAJ&q=Franklin+Mfg+Co&pg=PA20}}</ref>

Some of the earliest records of the modern [[paraffin wax]] crayon comes from Charles A. Bowley of  Massachusetts, who developed wax coloring crayons in the late 1880s. Bowley had been selling various [[stationery]] items in the vicinity of Danvers and had developed clumps of colored wax designed for marking [[leather]]. With the need for more accuracy, he went back to his home and formed the wax crayons into more manageable cylinder shapes similar to that of a pencil. He packaged his crayons into decorative boxes and offered them through stationer clients he knew. The demand for his crayons soon exceeded his ability to keep up with production and he partnered with the American Crayon Company,<ref>{{cite web|title=''The American Crayon Co., Sandusky, OH, 1835 - 1957'' on website crayoncollecting.com |url=https://crayoncollecting.com/Other/AmericanCrayon.htm |access-date=10 September 2021 |url-status=live |quote= (condensed excerpt) American Crayon Company formed from the merger in 1890 of several older companies, one dating back to 1835.  In 1957 it merged with Joseph Dixon Crucible, which then merged with Bryn Mawr Corporation in 1983 to form the [[Dixon Ticonderoga Company]]. 'Prang' became the brand of crayon made by the American Crayon Company subsidiary thereof.|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101008202823/http://crayoncollecting.com/Other/AmericanCrayon.htm |archive-date=2010-10-08 }}</ref> who had been producing chalk crayons, in 1902.<ref name="Bowley">{{cite book
|last=Elliott
|first=Brenda
|title=The Best of Its Kind
|publisher=Bookcrafters
|location=Fredericksburg, VA
|year=1996
|pages=[https://archive.org/details/bestofitskindsin00bren/page/148 148–149]
|isbn=0-9650739-0-4
|url=https://archive.org/details/bestofitskindsin00bren/page/148
}}</ref>

[[Edwin Binney]] and C. Harold Smith had been long established in the coloring marketplace through Binney's [[Peekskill, New York]], chemical works making [[lampblack]] by burning [[whale]] and [[carbon black]], as well as their [[chalk]] products. In 1902, they developed and introduced the Staonal marking crayon. A year later in 1903, Edwin Binney's wife, Alice Stead Binney,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Crayola Crayons |url=https://www.si.edu/newsdesk/snapshot/crayola-crayons |access-date=2022-06-21 |website=Smithsonian Institution |language=en}}</ref> coined the name [[Crayola]] by combining the French word for chalk, ''craie'', with the first part of ''oleaginous'', another name for the paraffin wax used to make the crayon.<ref name="Crayolahist">{{cite book
|last=Kitchel
|first=A.F.
|title=The Story of a Rainbow
|publisher=Crayola LLC
|location=Easton, PA
|year=1961
}}</ref><ref name="Crayolause">{{cite book
|title=The Official Gazette of the United States Patent Office
|volume=105
|publisher=Government Printing Office
|location=Washington, DC
|date=Jul–Aug 1903
|page=968
|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=cMt8AAAAMAAJ&q=Crayola&pg=RA1-PA968
}}</ref> Binney and Smith were quick to capitalize on their creation, selling boxes of various sizes and color pallets.<ref name="Crayolaad1">{{cite book
|title=New York Teachers Monographs
|volume=7
|edition=No 1
|publisher=American Book Company
|location=New York, NY
|date=March 1905
|page=125
|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=0dxNAAAAMAAJ&q=Crayola&pg=RA1-PA125
}}</ref> The Rubens Crayola line started in 1903 as well,<ref name="Crayolapamphlet">{{cite book
|title=The Art of "Crayola" Painting
|publisher=Binney & Smith
|location=Easton, PA
|year=1904
}}</ref> aimed at artist and designed to compete with the Raphael brand of crayons from Europe.<ref name="CrayolaYouth">{{cite book
|title=The Youth's Companion
|publisher=Perry Mason & Co.
|location=Boston, MA
|date=October 18, 1906
|page=524
}}</ref>

[[File:Crayola Ad 1905.jpg|thumb|March 1905 ad from [[Crayola]]]]
Their most recognizable brand was the Crayola "Gold Medal" line in yellow boxes, which referred to one the company earned with their An-du-Septic dustless chalk during the March [[1904 St. Louis World's Fair]]. They used the award to design a new line of crayons featuring the medal on the front of their box.<ref name="StLouisExpo">{{cite web|url=http://www.tlaupp.com/goldmedal.html |title=Gold Medals Louisiana Purchase Exposition 1904 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100822175649/http://www.tlaupp.com/goldmedal.html |archive-date=August 22, 2010 }}</ref> Initially, they developed and introduced the No. 8 box of eight assorted colors, which became an immediate success; it was even featured on a [[postage stamp]] in early 1905.<ref name="CrayolaNo">{{cite book
|title=The West Virginia School Journal
|volume=34
|publisher=Acme Publishing Co.
|location=Morgantown, WV
|date=October 18, 1906
|page=5
|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=mPQBAAAAYAAJ&q=Crayola&pg=RA8-PA5}}</ref> From there they began to phase out other Crayola crayon boxes until their line of Crayola crayons featured the Gold Medal design.

Hundreds of companies entered the crayon market, but only a few exist today, with Crayola dominating the market in the United States. That brand become a [[generic trademark]]<ref name="gc">{{cite web |url= https://www.genericides.org/trademark/crayola |title= Has crayola become a generic trademark? |access-date= April 29, 2021 |website= genericides.org |archive-date= April 29, 2021 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20210429141935/https://www.genericides.org/trademark/crayola |url-status= dead }}</ref> also used to describe other brands' crayons. In all, there were over 300 documented crayon manufacturers in the United States and many more in other countries.

===Today===
[[File:One Made it.jpg|thumb|An assortment of Crayola crayons]]
Beyond Crayola, other [[brand name]] crayon manufacturers today include [[Rose Art Industries]] and [[Dixon Ticonderoga]], the successor to the American Crayon Company. Numerous suppliers create [[generic brand]] or [[store brand]] crayons. These are typically found in supermarkets.

In 2000, there was concern about potential contamination of [[asbestos]] in many popular brands of crayons after the ''Seattle Post-Intelligencer'' reported in May of that year that they had tests performed finding that three brands of crayons contained asbestos.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.commondreams.org/headlines/052300-02.htm|title=Major brands of kids' crayons contain asbestos, tests show|author=Andrew Schneider|author2=Carol Smith|date=May 23, 2000|access-date=December 19, 2009|work=Seattle Post-Intelligencer|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110525061550/http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/052300-02.htm|archive-date=May 25, 2011|url-status=dead}}</ref> In a follow-up study released in June the [[Consumer Product Safety Commission|U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission]] (CPSC) found traces of asbestos fibers in three crayons and larger amounts of transitional fibers which can be misinterpreted as asbestos<!-- probably need to cite here somehow that these fibers are often mistaken for asbestos, see http://www.olympus-sis.com/en/6900_6928.htm --> as a result of using talc as a binding agent in additional crayons. CPSC declared the risk to be low, but said that because of the concerns it had asked manufacturers to reformulate the concerned crayons and commended them for their swift agreement to do so.<ref>{{cite web|title=CPSC Releases Test Results on Crayons, Industry to reformulate|url=http://cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml00/00123.html|date=June 13, 2000|access-date=December 19, 2009|publisher=U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110721033913/http://cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml00/00123.html|archive-date=July 21, 2011|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.cpsc.gov/LIBRARY/FOIA/foia00/os/crayons.pdf|title=CPSC Staff Report on Asbestos Fibers in Children's Crayons|date=August 2000|access-date=2009-11-18|publisher=U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090826233121/http://www.cpsc.gov/library/foia/foia00/os/crayons.pdf|archive-date=2009-08-26}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/crayons.asp|title=Crayon Me a River|date=December 31, 2005|access-date=December 19, 2009}}</ref>