A brief history of the great American coloring book

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Nowadays, adult coloring books are a hot trend, giving adults all over the world valuable time to use colored crayons and pencils. there are some that will calm you (stress relief patterns), teach you (nature art coloring book), and even make you laugh (unicorns are idiots).

But most of us don’t know where coloring books come from. To find out, I talked to Laura E. Wasowicz is Curator of Children’s Literature at the American Antiquarian Society and shared what we know about the beginnings of the coloring book.

You are reading: History of coloring books

the origins of the coloring book

A half-colored page from one of the first coloring books, The Little Folks Painting Book.

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The first coloring books appeared years before crayons became mainstream. (The company that became Crayola, for example, didn’t start making recognizable crayons until 1902.) that meant these early coloring books were called “paint books” and were usually illustrated with watercolors.

wasowicz has found examples in the antiquarian society collection dating back to the 1850s, and there are art instruction books even earlier. The Little Folks Painting Book from around 1880 is generally considered the first popular coloring book.

So it wasn’t until the 1870s and 1880s that the coloring book became a major part of childhood, and it took several factors to make it a success.

why the coloring book got so big

Kids hard at work coloring, as seen in the preface to the Little Folks Coloring Book.

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Most people attribute the rise of coloring books to a single publisher, the Mcloughlin brothers. While others like Milton Bradley (yes, the game guy) promoted children’s books, Mcloughlin was key. amy weinstein wrote about the first coloring books in the beautiful picture book once upon a time: illustrations of fairy tales, fables, primer, pop-ups and other children’s books, and she writes that if the children’s book movement was a revolution, then “john mcloughlin, jr. (1827-1905) can be considered the great American general of the movement.”

But it wasn’t just one company that made hair color possible. the big driving trends range from social to technological and include:

a revolution in printing. “The first thing is the development of lithography,” says wasowicz. “It was as revolutionary as computer printing is today.” Invented in 1796, lithography became widespread and came to America from Europe in the 1850s, and was perfected in the 1870s. It allowed for easier printing than with a wood block or copper plate, as well as the ability to reproduce thousands of images quickly and easily. As Europeans perfected the process, incredible coloring books were created, and relatively inexpensive “painting books” such as the Little People’s Painting Book. cheaper paper also helped.
a–free–everything in post. One of the reasons it’s so hard to find the truth about coloring books is that, in the absence of modern copyright law, especially internationally, publishers brazenly stole the books and illustrations of others. that was bad for the original artists and publishers, but it kept the books affordable for many families.
For example, Wasowicz describes how the author of a children’s book, The Baby Opera, discovered that the Mcloughlin brothers had copied the book from him when he saw a completely different colored version.

And if there’s one emblematic artist of early childhood illustration, it’s Kate Greenaway, whose work includes coloring books. It’s unclear if he allowed the Mcloughlin brothers to use his illustrations in versions of the Little People Painting Book or the Little People Nature Painting Book (seen below), but the images most likely were stolen.
A Kate Greenaway illustration circa 1880.

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the impression collector/the impression collector/getty images
- a change in education. wasowicz points out that children’s literature always had a strong profit motive, but some of the demand came from a nobler place, reflecting changing views of education and children.
  as intellectuals like friedrich fröbel (the inventor of the kindergarten) became more influential, people began to encourage children to be creative. “There was a revitalization of art and how art should be taught,” Wasowicz says. “With coloring books, there is more freedom.”
  
  This is reflected in other books of the time, which experimented extensively with interactive forms, including paper dolls and books with attached tracing paper, which became widespread around the same time.
  
  coloring books today, for all ages
  
  One of today’s popular adult coloring books.
  
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  After the coloring book boom of the 1880s, it was only a matter of time before they became a childhood mainstay. the mass popularization of crayons in the 1900s made it easy, and by 1922 newspapers were publishing drawings designed for coloring.
  
  As kids got older, coloring books eventually grew with them. Vintage Automobiles of Dover, published in 1970, is often called the first “adult coloring book,” and these books have since expanded to include pop culture references and occasional antics. Kate Greenaway could never have imagined coloring Rick Ross (in Bun B’s Rapper Coloring and Activity Book from 2013). Today, adult coloring is so popular that people ask therapists for their opinion on the trend.
  
  However, despite the differences between today’s adult coloring books and the originals, even modern versions would be recognizable to children of the 1880s. After all, be it mother goose or nas, a coloring book is still just a drawing, waiting for you to complete it.
  
  See Also: The best books and audiobooks of 2020 so far | Books | The Guardian
  
  See also Krista Davis - Book Series In Order

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A brief history of the great American coloring book – Vox

the origins of the coloring book

why the coloring book got so big

coloring books today, for all ages

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