Today, adult coloring books are a hot trend, giving grownups around the world some precious crayon and colored pencil time. There are ones that will soothe you (Stress Relieving Patterns), teach you (Art of Nature Coloring Book), and even make you laugh (Unicorns Are Jerks).
But most of us don't know where coloring books came from in the first place. To find out, I spoke with Laura E. Wasowicz. She's the curator of children's literature at the American Antiquarian Society, and she shared what we know about the coloring book's beginnings.
The origins of the coloring book
The first coloring books were around years before the crayon 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 "painting books" and were usually illustrated with watercolors.
Wasowicz has found examples in the Antiquarian Society's collection that go back to the 1850s, and there are art instruction books from even earlier. The circa-1880 Little Folks Painting Book is generally considered the first popular coloring book.
So it wasn't until the 1870s and 1880s that the coloring book became a mainstream part of childhood, and it took a range of factors to make it a hit.