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:
“You that would judge me do not judge alone
This book or that, come to this hallowed place
Where my friends’ portraits hang and look thereon;
Ireland’s history in their lineaments trace;
Think where man’s glory most begins and ends
And say my glory was I had such friends.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“No one can understand Paris and its history who does not understand that its fierceness is the balance and justification of its frivolity. It is called a city of pleasure; but it may also very specially be called a city of pain. The crown of roses is also a crown of thorns. Its people are too prone to hurt others, but quite ready also to hurt themselves. They are martyrs for religion, they are martyrs for irreligion; they are even martyrs for immorality.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“The history of literature—take the net result of Tiraboshi, Warton, or Schlegel,—is a sum of a very few ideas, and of very few original tales,—all the rest being variation of these.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)