Piggy Bank History - Origin of the Piggy Bank

Did you ever wonder why its called a piggy bank?

Dogs bury bones. Squirrels gather nuts to last through the winter. Camels store food and water so they can travel many days across deserts. But do pigs save anything? No! Pigs save nothing. They bury nothing. They store nothing.

So why do we save our coins in a piggy bank? Because someone made a mistake. During The Middle Ages, in about the fifteenth century, metal was expensive and seldom used for household wares. Instead, dishes and pots were made of an economical clay called pygg. Whenever housewives could save an extra coin, they dropped it into one of their clay jars.They called this their pygg bank or their piggy bank.

Over the next two hundred to three hundred years, people forgot that "pygg" referred to the earthenware material. In the nineteenth century when English potters received requests for piggy banks, they produced banks shaped like a pig. Of course, the pigs appealed to the customers and delighted the children.

TO LEARN MORE

ON THE BOOKSHELF:
Mistakes That Worked
by Charlotte Foltz Jones, John O'Brien (Illustrator) / Paperback - 48 pages (1994) / Doubleday
Recounting the fascinating stories behind the accidental inventions of forty familiar objects and products.

ON THE WEB:
Photographs and Facts about Piggy Banks
British and European Piggy Banks, with a history of the famous potters and potteries that made them.
(URL: www.piggybankpage.co.uk/)
Make a Paper Mache Piggy Bank
By Christine Dvornik for the Family Education Web site. POP-UP ADS.
(URL: www.familyeducation.com/article/0,1120,2-14675,00.html)
Legends of America
In the early 1900’s, a ten year-old boy, impressed by a traveling missionary’s sermon about lepers, decided to raise money to help a boy suffering from the disease. Raising a pig named Pete, Wilbur Chapman, sold the pig, donating the $25.00 from the sale to the boy with leprosy. His compassion caught the imagination of the public and started the “Pig Bank Movement” to help lepers and the name “piggy bank” was coined. A plaque commemorating the boy and the idea of the “piggy bank” is mounted on the Community Christian Church on Main Street in White Cloud, Kansas.
(URL: legendsofamerica.com/OZ-WhiteCloud2.html)
thefirstworldwidepiggybankhomepage
The piggy bank is a piece of art already long known by many different cultures; it's only natural that this lovely animal has an internet-page of its own! POP-UP ADS
(URL: home.zonnet.nl/PiggyBank/)
Mondo's Trivia Question
How did the "piggy bank" get its name and shape of a pig? 247 out of 2513 respondents answered correctly. POP-UP ADS.
(URL: www.geocities.com/Paris/9896/mondo.htm)

WHERE TO FIND:
Piggy Bank World
Free articles and information about piggy banks, coin saving and related subjects. Check out the top ten reasons to own a piggy bank. Lots of piggy banks for sale.
( URL: www.piggybankworld.com/)

Reference Sources in BOLD Type

This page revised August 10, 2006.


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