Stickers: A Gummy History

Stickers are defined as being a piece of paper oron vegetables cans and on cigar boxes.
other material of which one side has a substanceStickers evolved a bit to pre-apply the paste to the
meant to help it cling to a surface. Wow, that is aback of the stickers and let them dry. Then, by
pretty confusing definition of a pretty simply concept.applying water or saliva to the sticker surface, the
The sticker, may have been discovered by ancientpast would activate and the sticker could be placed on
Egyptians who were trying to advertise the dailya surface. These types of stickers were very popular
market specials, or it may have been a Department ofas travel and luggage stickers and are considered to
Defense contractor who was hired to find a way tobe collectors items today.
label the dangerous from the not-so-dangerous. It isFrom the pre-pasted, the concept of stickers evolved
really hard to tell which, if either of these explanations,when R. Stanton Avery manufactured the first
is correct. So let's consider the third option. Apparently,self-adhesive labels. The label/sticker that Avery
European advertising gurus came up with the idea todesigned had a paper surface with a coat of adhesive
help consumers identify products by their colorfulwhich was then stuck on a liner. The liner had a special
paper labels somewhere in the early 1880s. Thesilicone coating that enabled the label to be removed
colorful paper labels were affixed with a gum paste.and stuck to other surfaces. Stickers today still use the
The main products that utilized this concept (at least atbasic premise of the self-adhesive label that Avery
first) was fruit. There was a huge amount ofinvented. For over 50 years stickers have became a
competition among orchards so the stickers (alsohuge marketing item for every sort of household
known as lithography) were used by the owners toproduct imaginable. In addition, bumper stickers have
bring attention to their fruit. The labels would be stuckalso become part of the popular culture fads and icons
to the side of the cedar crates that were full of fruitas they have been used for political and social
and ready to sell. The concept was also used widelycommentary.