{"id":9378,"date":"2021-03-30T17:18:35","date_gmt":"2021-03-30T22:18:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/eng\/?p=9378"},"modified":"2021-03-31T09:15:41","modified_gmt":"2021-03-31T14:15:41","slug":"its-national-pencil-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/eng\/its-national-pencil-day\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s National Pencil Day!!"},"content":{"rendered":"

March 30th<\/sup> is National Pencil Day!!<\/strong><\/h3>\n

I bet you don’t think much about the pencil when you think about picking it up and getting to work. Probably when it needs to be sharpened or when the mechanical pencil needs more lead, but most of us don’t think of the pencil often. It just is there. It just “is.” <\/p>\n

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The pencil, as we know it, has a fascinating history, dating back to the early 16th<\/sup> century! So why would March 30th<\/sup> be National Pencil Day? March 30, 1858 was the date when Hymen Lipman received the first patent for attaching an eraser to the end of a pencil!<\/p>\n

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Lead stylus and bread eraser. A Visual History of the Pencil. The Museum of Everyday Life.<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Back in the 16th century a storm in Cumberland uprooted a large tree exposing a black, gooey substance in Borrowdale near Kewsick. The substance was actually graphite and the nearby farmers used it to mark their sheep. That soon developed into sticks of graphite being wrapped in string so the fingers wouldn’t get so dirty. That developed into a casing that would hold the graphite – a predecessor to what we know of as the mechanical pencil. Sometime in the 16th century the pencil, much as we know it, was born. Graphite wasn’t exported so that area became the world-wide center of pencil manufacturing. The graphite in that area was the only known source of high-quality graphite so it was highly guarded and sold for large sums at auctions. <\/p>\n

I won’t go into long detail, but when France declared war on Great Britain in 1793, they needed to come up with an alternative to the pencils made in Great Britain.  So Nicolas-Jacques Cont\u00e9 was tasked with developing a pencil which did not require imported materials. He came up with mixing graphite powder with clay to produce fine rods which were fired in a kiln. It was patented by Cont\u00e9 in 1795 and is still the process by which pencils are made today.<\/p>\n

After many iterations the Dixon Ticonderoga Company claimed to make “the world’s best pencil.” The Ticonderoga #2 pencil  is the familiar yellow pencil with the yellow and green ferrule (the metal sleeve holding the eraser in place). Chances you have one on your desk.<\/p>\n

Little known fact: “[…] the pencil does have a dark side – George Lucas apparently used a Dixon Ticonderoga when he working on the first draft of the screenplay for Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace<\/em>, and so the pencil is, at least in part, responsible for Jar Jar Binks.” At least that is what James Ward, author  of The Perfection of the Paper Clip: Curious Tales of Invention, Accidental Genius, and Stationery Obsession<\/a>, <\/em>claims on page 96.<\/p>\n

Stationery Fever: From Paper Clips to Pencils and Everything in Between<\/a> <\/em>author John Z. Komurki claims the Eberhard Faber Blackwing 602 is the “[…most gorgeous pencil the world has every seen […]”. It is a hexagonal pencil made with the unique mixture of wax, graphite and clay used in the lead. Because of that special mixture it claimed ‘half the pressure, twice the speed.’ The Blackwing was reportedly used by John Steinbeck, Truman Capote, Chuck Jones, Stephen Sondheim, and Eugene O’Neill, to name a few!<\/p>\n

The history of pencils is fascinating and includes a book, How to Sharpen Pencils.<\/em> Stationery Fever<\/em> has a chapter devoted to pencil sharpening!<\/p>\n

Here are interesting facts about “notable pencil users” from the National Day Calendar<\/a>.<\/p>\n