Times when Crayola fired their own crayons

Crayola revolutionized the crayon industry, but they are known for firing their own crayons in one way or the other.

Crayola, and the complex saga of the names of their beautiful waxy crayons.

In the year 1903, cousins C. Harold Smith and Edwin Binney introduced the world to the magical world of Crayola with their first eight crayons. Our childhood is filled with the memory of testing different Crayola on a pristine white sheet. No matter how many boxes we used up of Crayola, we still couldn’t get enough of them. But do you know Crayola is known for convoluted swapping and renaming of their own crayons? So, here are some of the crayons that were fired by Crayola due to controversies or just to introduce new colours.

When Prussian Blue reminded everyone of the political tension of cold war.

The present-day Germany and Poland was known as the kingdom of Prussia, was an independent state from 1701 to 1871. But when it came to the world of colours, Prussian Blue surprisingly had a quite short reign. The colour named Prussian Blue was introduced by the company along with 39 other new shades. But after some teachers started to raise objections that crayons should not be named after countries that create cold war tension. So, the Crayola stripped the name of the crayon in the year 1958 and came up with a new name, Midnight Blue, which sounded more beautiful and less political.

When Indian Red was too racist a name for a colour used by the children.

In the year 1958, the company introduced 64 shades box with 15 additional colours for children to play with. There was a colour named Indian Red which raised certain red flags amongst teachers who raised their concerns against it. They believed that the colour seemed to mock native Indian’s skin colour. But in reality, the company named the colour because its pigment was originated in India, hence, Indian Red. After all the concerns were raised, the company changed the name of the colour to Chestnut.

When old colours were retired to bring in new colours and interesting names.

For the first time in the year 1990, Crayola forcefully retired many of its iconic colours from the house of Crayola. So, the famous colours such as Orange Red, Lemon Yellow, Orange Yellow, Maize, Violet Blue and Raw Umber were retired and much more pigmented, bolder colours such as Fuchsia, Cerulean, and Dandelion.

Which was your favourite colour in the Crayola in your childhood?