In the mid 1940s, roller skating was one of America’s favorite pastimes. The country had survived the Great Depression, World War II was winding down, hope was on the horizon and thousands of roller rinks had been built around the country. Riding the wave of the post-war skating boom, rink owners had collectively committed themselves to establishing roller rinks as wholesome, family-fun places, and their efforts were being rewarded. As America moved toward the “gee dad” era, roller rinks played a vital role in the country’s social scene. But as enthusiasm for roller skating grew, so did the competition between rinks, and owners soon found themselves vying for skaters’ loyalties.

Always on the lookout for new marketing angles, and inspired by the custom designs that kids were creating on their roller skate cases, a few like-minded owners created skate stickers with their rink logos on them and distributed them freely to patrons. The promotional move worked like a charm, as people were happy to slap the stickers on their gear and represent their home rink. When other rink owners caught sight of the stickers, they created their own and the trend quickly spread across the country.

The stickers ranged from one-color, roller skate and wing logos, to full-color, die-cut pieces of design mastery. The designers of the stickers, most of whose names have been lost over the years, branched out from simply creating a logo, and started exploring different themes for their stickers. Some of the more popular ones included aeronautics, the old-west and cowboy culture, patriotism, animals, love, humor and the roller rink equivalent of the pin-up girl. The design variations were as numerous as the different rinks and the acquisition of a sticker was as easy as rolling in to get one.

The existence of thousands of different roller skate stickers, all given away for free, and the fact that each sticker represented a different rink, brought on a severe case of collector-itis. Skate enthusiasts began sharing, trading and collecting stickers from as many varying rinks as they could. With rare and hard-to-find stickers being the most desirable, the highest trading value was placed on those stickers that came from out of the way places or whose designs were more intricate, with multiple colors, detailed images and custom shapes.

Roller skating sticker enthusiasts traded with friends and picked up stickers where they could. In those pre-Internet days, they were somewhat limited in how they found fellow traders. However, in 1948, a group of sticker collectors decided to turn their hobby into an organization, and they created the Universal Roller Skating Sticker Exchange (URSSE). With annual conventions at different locations around the U.S., sticker enthusiasts would travel the country, with their binders full of stickers, to attend the meetings. They would make friends, show and tell their collections, trade wares and celebrate roller skating and skating stickers with other collectors.

Over the next 30 years, URSSE membership grew to 4,000 members, and even when the Golden Age of roller skating was replaced by the glitz of the disco era, rink owners, who were well-aware of the trading community, were still printing stickers. The last official meeting of the Sticker Exchangeoccurred in 1989 in Cornwell Heights, Pennsylvania, where the few remaining members, aware that the golden age had moved on to the inline age, voted to disband.

The way the roller skating sticker phenomenon happened, with its remarkably un-Capitalist spirit, and the DIY wrangling of cultural artifacts from around the country, created a unique movement that existed outside the realm of commercialism. Skate enthusiasts took their love of skating and skate stickers and created a community of friends that transcended geography. We’re left with an amazing and inspiring snapshot of the people and the designs of the Golden Age of Roller Skating.

Special thanks to Lou Brooks for the inspiration, information and access to his roller skating sticker images. If you are interested in learning more about The Golden Age of Roller Skating and the designs it produced, check out his delightful book, Skate Crazy: Amazing Graphics from the Golden Age of Roller Skating.