Avery Dennison Corporation (NYSE: AVY) is a global manufacturer and distributor of pressure-sensitive adhesive materials (such as self-adhesive labels), office products, and various paper products.
The company was originally founded in Los Angeles, California, in 1935 as Kum Kleen Products, a partnership of Mr. and Mrs. R.S. Avery. The name was changed to Avery Adhesives in 1937. In 1946, the company was incorporated as Avery Adhesive Label Corp., and the name was subsequently changed to Avery Adhesive Products, Inc. in 1958, and to Avery Products Corporation in 1964. The name was changed again to Avery International Corporation in 1976, and it became Avery Dennison after the company merged with the Dennison Manufacturing Company in 1990.
The Dennison Manufacturing Company, which was located in Framingham, Massachusetts, was founded in 1844 as a jewelry and watch box-manufacturing company by Aaron Lufkin Dennison, who later became the pioneer[peacock term] of the American System of Watch Manufacturing. Five years later Aaron turned the Dennison Manufacturing Company over to his younger brother, Eliphalet Whorf Dennison, who took over and developed the company into a sizable[weasel words] industrial enterprise.