History
Stickers have long been used to convey messages, including political and informational messages, on various surfaces that they might be placed. The introduction of stickers made specifically for the purpose of placement on vehicle bumpers necessarily date roughly with the introduction of the automobile bumper; the Ford Model T lacked bumpers to which bumper stickers could be conveniently attached, but the Ford Model A, introduced in 1927, had them. One online source credits the current bumper sticker to Forest P. Gill, a silkscreen printer from Kansas City.
The first bumper stickers appeared shortly before World War II; they were flag-like, and attached to the bumper by wires. Gill replaced the wire attachments with pressure sensitive adhesive, and as a result bumper stickers became more widespread and practical.
The first widespread use of the advertising bumper sticker might have been the ubiquitous "See Rock City" signs, touting a tourist attraction atop Lookout Mountain, Tennessee. In the 1940s, visitors to the site had a sticker applied to their car, which duplicated the famous signs painted on the roofs of barns throughout the southeastern USA. Rock City staff would circulate through the parking lot, applying the promotional sticker to every car. Although called "stickers", these bumper signs were really lightweight, screen-printed cardboard. They were attached by means of thin aluminum strips, running through the end of the sign and wrapping around the bumper.
Read more about this topic: Bumper Sticker
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“To a surprising extent the war-lords in shining armour, the apostles of the martial virtues, tend not to die fighting when the time comes. History is full of ignominious getaways by the great and famous.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)
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—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
“To care for the quarrels of the past, to identify oneself passionately with a cause that became, politically speaking, a losing cause with the birth of the modern world, is to experience a kind of straining against reality, a rebellious nonconformity that, again, is rare in America, where children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)