The pencil:
A social, political, and material history
David Gruber
STS 214
1560s-1660s
• Before pencils, people
marked on papyrus with
a stylus. Pencils were
initially sticks of graphite
wrapped in string.
- Why graphite?
*Huge deposit discovered in England in 1564
*Made darker black marks, better than a lead
stylus
Q: Why were they wrapped in string?
1660s-1812
• England and Germany produced pencils, wrapping
the graphite in wood casings.
• At the time, all pencils were imported to the US.
Q: But what happened in 1812?
HINT
1812
• So William Monroe, living outside Boston, had
an idea! Can you guess what it is?
1812
• Monroe experiments with
graphite and clay
mixtures and finds a way
to make “lead” without
having to harden it in a
furnace.
Q: Why is this potentially
good for Monroe?
1812-1814
• Manufacturers, like Monroe,
crop up in the dozens. And they
all need local graphite. Why?
• The local graphite is located in
New York State. But, as it turns
out, the best graphite is in
England and China. And the
best trees for pencil casings are
located in Tennessee. Can you
say Eastern Red Cedar?
1816-1900 (some effects)
• American pencil makers import most graphite and move
their companies south and start cutting down trees.
• Ebenezer Wood (old “friend”) invents pencil cutter. Joseph
Dixon invents a machine that can better plane wood to fit
pencils. He mass produces pencils and makes a ton of cash.
As a result, there’s more pencils than ever before!
• After the War of 1812, some import “lead” from England,
China, or Germany, while others use what exists in New
York.
Q: to remain competitive with the fancy (“better”) Chinese
pencils, what do you think the companies do?
Fake it!
1860s
• Pencil demand goes up. Some reasons… Look
at the pictures here below and take a guess!
1900-1940
• Whoops! More trees are needed! Tennessee
sees irresponsible tree management; tall
stands of the Eastern Red Cedar start
disappearing. So what happens to the pencil?
Can you say
Incense Cedar?
Okay, backup…
• Notice the pencil was
“invented” in the
1560s. Why then?
• What happened in the
1440s? And then what
did Aldus Manutius do
in Venice in the early
1500s?
The rise of the pencil
• So what happened? Why did people want to
make pencils? What happened between the
1560s and the early 1800s to cause people to
desire pencils such that demand for them
skyrocketed? (remember: writing tools
existing for thousands of years)
• A long history goes into the “silent reading
subjectivity.”
The point
• The pencil is an object of social, political, and
material processes over a long period of time.
– Personal relationships, business partnerships,
cultural symbols, gender, class, literacy rates
– Wars, trade deals
– Graphite, trees, hands and brains (influences on
thinking / ways of thinking)
sources
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http://designhistory.org/books.html
http://www.pencils.com/pencil-history
http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/Dixon-TiconderogaCompany-Company-History.html
http://www.officemuseum.com/pencil_history.htm
http://www.pabook.libraries.psu.edu/palitmap/Pencil.html