Dixon Ticonderoga Company, one of America's oldest corporations, evolved for over two hundred years and traces its heritage to the proponents of the American Revolution and to the very foundations of the United States. With the merger of the Bryn Mawr Corporation and the Joseph Dixon Crucible Company in 1983, many industrial and historical greats were joined together to create the new company. This merger brought together Joseph Dixon, the founder of America's graphite industry; the American Crayon Company, one of the country's oldest school suppliers; Louis Prang, the world-renowned chromolithographer and art educator; and the Philadelphia to Lancaster Turnpike Road Company, a historical great.
Dixon Ticonderoga Company's heritage includes pioneering work in advancing technologies that led to manufacturing, advertising, and marketing solutions. For example, Joseph Dixon and Orestes Cleveland were the first to mechanize pencil manufacturing. Among the other inventions and processes created by Joseph Dixon were his uses of lithography, artistic pencil drawings, drawing competitions and public demonstrations in the marketing of his main product, graphite.
The never-ending quest for quality raw materials advanced the company's interests around the world. Around 1870 the Joseph Dixon Crucible Company secured its own dedicated source of cedar in Florida. The company's search for graphite, its primary raw material, connects it with President Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire, America's leading pioneer geologists and scientists, the exotic ports of Ceylon and Madagascar, and the graphite mines of New York, Texas, Mexico and Germany. During the 1980s and 1990s Dixon continued to expand throughout North America, Asia and even Europe.
In 2005, Dixon Ticonderoga Company was acquired by FILA S.p.A. of Milan. This acquisition allowed for many synergies between the two companies creating a global, vertically-integrated, premier education supply company. Dixon also incorporated new high quality products to their line, including Das Air Dry Clay. In 2008, FILA acquired 200 year old German-based manufacturer, LYRA. Dixon Ticonderoga Company began distribution of Lyra products in the US and Canada in 2009.
Since 2005, our Family of Employees, has renewed our focus by returning us to our educational roots as a school supply company first. Under this vision the Dixon family has revitalized the Prang Power Teacher Reward Program and renewed our commitment to the Kids In Need Foundation as well as other educational charities. Dixon has globally expanded product offerings into Retail, Industrial, and Promotional Products for both Writing and Arts & Crafts. Products from Dixon serve a customer for their whole life, from the first moment they can hold an instrument of creativity in their hand through the pinnacle of their personal and professional development, whether it is through business, education, craftsmanship ,or in the arts. Today, more than ever, Dixon Ticonderoga Company stands poised and ready to mold the minds of tomorrow with products that are the "Best of Their Kind".