According to one common story, they existed as early as 1861, when Boston confectioner William Schrafft urged people to buy them as gifts for soldiers in the American Civil War.

[1] A more definite reference appears in food testing records of the United States Department of Agriculture published in 1887.

[2] Most historians contend that jelly beans were first associated with celebrations of Easter in the United States sometime during the 1930s due to their egg-like shape.

[3] The basic ingredients of jelly beans include sugar, tapioca or corn syrup, and pectin or starch.

a "jellybean" or "jelly-bean" was a young man who dressed stylishly but had little else to recommend him, similar to the older terms dandy and fop.