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
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“Indeed, the Englishman’s history of New England commences only when it ceases to be New France.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“In nature, all is useful, all is beautiful. It is therefore beautiful, because it is alive, moving, reproductive; it is therefore useful, because it is symmetrical and fair. Beauty will not come at the call of a legislature, nor will it repeat in England or America its history in Greece. It will come, as always, unannounced, and spring up between the feet of brave and earnest men.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)