Brown and Bigelow of Saint Paul, Minnesota, is the world's oldest calendar company. Around 1903 the firm produced its first calendar with a female subject "Colette" (from a painting from Angelo Asti), a "charming but conservative portrait of a young beauty."

In the years that followed, "Colette" helped to sell more than 1.5 million calendars. In 1904 the first pin-up calendar indicated that the manufacture of "girlie" calendars could be a lucrative business.