Soapbox for the Automobile: Bumper Sticker History, Identification, and Preservation

Abstract

First produced in the late 1940s, the bumper sticker quickly gained prominence in the early 1950s and over the years has served a wide range of purposes—from advertising tourist attractions and promoting public safety to political campaigning. As a result, many bumper stickers holding value as historical, cultural, or aesthetic artifacts have been collected by archives, museums, and libraries. Due to their potentially unstable composition, however, bumper stickers often present challenging preservation issues. In order to identify the types of bumper stickers currently held by U.S. cultural institutions and assess their preservation needs, a survey of over two-thousand bumper stickers was conducted. This paper documents the survey findings and provides guidance for dating and preserving bumper stickers.