Pen History: The 1840’s, from the perspective of the 1850’s.

I’ve been covering the history of steel pens up to the 1840’s based as much as possible on the primary sources I’ve been able to find. Up to the 1850’s, the industry had been too new for anyone to indulge in a retrospective. That changed with a new company who wanted to create an identity that placed themselves in opposition to all who had come before.  This was the Washington Medallion Pen Company.

I found this earliest attempt at taking a broader look at history of the US steel pen industry is found in an article in the United States Magazine issue for April of 1857 describing the factory of the Washington Medallion Pen Company.

We’ll be looking at the whole article in another post, and we’ll be talking about the Washington Medallion Pen Company in much greater length elsewhere. At this point I want to look at the following selection from the article and we’ll see if we can trace it step-by-step. It’s important to remember that the author was not trying to paint an accurate, historical view of past pen makers, but was instead helping to build a narrative of the WMPC as something radically new in both its product as well as its success.

Here’s the whole section. After, I’ll take each piece and see what we can find out from it.

About the year 1840, steel pens having become in considerable demand in this country, and the fact of their almost universal adoption being already apparent, the cupidity of certain parties was excited, and they resolved to present steel pens of home manufacture for the public favor. The first effort was by a company in Massachusetts, who perfected some fair specimens for that early day; but, owning to inexperience and the absence of proper tools, tool makers, and a knowledge of slitting, tempering and finishing, their products lacked uniformity of quality; thus the enterprise failed. Soon after, two or three of the principle dealers in stationery in this city experimented in steel pen manufacture. We remember one of them who commenced operations in Brooklyn, and who, after expending some $15,000, followed in the wake of the Eastern Company. Another erected his works in New Jersey, and for some months battled manfully for success; finally he “felt” he must follow his illustrious predecessors. The late C.C. Wright, long known as a prominent engraver and die-sinker, made a most strenuous effort to permanently establish this manufacture. Through his influence, aided by J. C. Barnett, since well known as the treasurer of Burton’s Theater, a company was formed and a capital amounting to $200,000 expended. A large factory was erected on Fifth street, in this city, the most approved machinery and fixtures procured, operations commenced, and ten or twelve varieties of pens produced, many of them of excellent quality; yet, notwithstanding the impetus with which the affair was started, it met with no better success than those before mentioned. We learn of no attempts to resuscitate the business until 1852, when some Birmingham men, who claimed to be experts, induced certain capitalists in New Jersey to “try their money” in the operation. One after the other, two or three companies expended large amounts, each with no better pecuniary results than had been before arrived at.

If you’ve been following the history so far, some of these references should be fairly obvious, but I’m going to look at them one-by-one.

Analysis

About the year 1840, steel pens having become in considerable demand in this country, and the fact of their almost universal adoption being already apparent, the cupidity of certain parties was excited, and they resolved to present steel pens of home manufacture for the public favor.

As I mentioned in my original article on the 1840’s, the British had dominated the pen industry in the 1820’s and 1830’s, and it was in the 1840’s when Americans made a serious effort at manufacturing steel pens. I also mentioned the rising nativist movement of the time, stressing the importance of us buying and supporting American manufacturers.


 

The first effort was by a company in Massachusetts, who perfected some fair specimens for that early day; but, owning to inexperience and the absence of proper tools, tool makers, and a knowledge of slitting, tempering and finishing, their products lacked uniformity of quality; thus the enterprise failed.

This is obviously referring to Josiah Hayden. If you remember, he was trying to set up a steel pen factory out in Western Massachusetts. As far as I’ve been able to find out, he founded the manufactory with all American labor. He brought in mechanics and tool makers from elsewhere in Massachusetts, and from as far away as Connecticut, but as far as I can tell, he was relying on their past experience making steel buttons or cotton mills, or other general manufacturing. There are some similarities between making metal buttons (Hayden’s former product) and steel pens, and with Yankee ingenuity and inventiveness, they were able to figure out how to produce a decent product. The quality was good enough to win silver medals at the American Institute fairs, but then the competition was not very steep. Hayden didn’t last long making steel pens before he sold the business and went on to making gold pens, which was much more of a hand-operation and not as reliant on specialized machinery, dies and knowledge of steel tempering.


 

Soon after, two or three of the principle dealers in stationery in this city experimented in steel pen manufacture. We remember one of them who commenced operations in Brooklyn, and who, after expending some $15,000, followed in the wake of the Eastern Company. Another erected his works in New Jersey, and for some months battled manfully for success; finally he “felt” he must follow his illustrious predecessors.

This is an interesting section. Obviously the second is a reference to David Felt. Felt founded Feltville in New Jeresey as his factory town. Now, Felt was making pens as early as the 1830’s, so he doesn’t fit neatly into the “About the year 1840” narrative, but I’m not counting on this source to give me the most accurate dating.

The real mystery is the reference to the first stationer. The only stationer who I know who had works in Brooklyn, besides Felt, was Herts & Sons. They had their stationery factory in Brooklyn, and Spooner, a stationer in Brooklyn, was one of their main dealers.

1845 Herts sons alpha

It’s interesting that he doesn’t make any mention of Herts’ English antecedents, which may be a mark against Herts being the subject. This only really becomes significant within the context of Washington Medallion’s marketing campaign, which we’ll look at elsewhere, which strongly focused on the fact that these are American Pens, made by Americans, for Americans.


 

The late C.C. Wright, long known as a prominent engraver and die-sinker, made a most strenuous effort to permanently establish this manufacture. Through his influence, aided by J. C. Barnett, since well known as the treasurer of Burton’s Theater, a company was formed and a capital amounting to $200,000 expended. A large factory was erected on Fifth street, in this city, the most approved machinery and fixtures procured, operations commenced, and ten or twelve varieties of pens produced, many of them of excellent quality; yet, notwithstanding the impetus with which the affair was started, it met with no better success than those before mentioned.

We looked at C. C. Wright in some detail. The interesting information here was further identifying J.C. Barnett as the treasurer of Burton’s Theater. Burton’s Theater was one of the first Broadway theaters. The purpose of this section of the magazine article is to compare the operations of Washington Medallion favorably versus the prior efforts at pen making, so all former makers must, at some point, fail. The information we have from C. C. Wright experts, based on the accounts of his life from his grandson, is that C. C. Wright made his money making pens and then sold the business because he had made enough to spend the rest of his life doing what he really wanted to do, engraving and medal making. The truth may never be known, but it may be somewhere between the all good and all failure stories. At least they admit the pens were of high quality.


 

We learn of no attempts to resuscitate the business until 1852, when some Birmingham men, who claimed to be experts, induced certain capitalists in New Jersey to “try their money” in the operation. One after the other, two or three companies expended large amounts, each with no better pecuniary results than had been before arrived at.

This concluding passage is interesting in a couple of ways. One is that I have no solid idea who he’s talking about. Since this is written in 1857, he’s only talking about a five-year period in which two or three companies tried to start, spending lots of money, and failed. That seems rather a shortened time frame. If these really happened then they may have started and closed rather rapidly and left no real trail for me to find.

 

The other interesting point is the fact that the author talks of “Birmingham men” coming in to provide expertise. This is interesting, because this is precisely the pattern we’re going to see in the next two decades, the 1850’s and 1860’s, where it’s transplanted Birmingham men, trained in the main British pen factories, who kick off the first real, sustained wave of successful steel pen businesses in the US. And the first is, ironically enough, the subject of this article, the Washington Medallion Pen Company.

 

 

 

Pen History, the 1840’s: Rhodes/Rhoads mystery, transition to the 1850’s.

When working through 1840’s steel pen advertisements, one will encounter a number of them that seem similar: Rhoads & Sons, Rhodes & Sons, Rhodes & Son, Rhoades & Son’s, Rhoad’s & Sons amalgam pen, patent amalgam pen, patent amalgam double action pens, patent amalgam quill spring pen.

 

1853 Rhoads Sons amalgam pen long ad

1853 Rhodes & Sons

1854 Rhodes and son patent amalgam quill spring pen

Besides pointing out the relative “flexibility” typesetters could have with spelling, we have to answer the question if it really is this “flexibility” to blame, or if there really were more than one similarly-named pen makers.

This question has been plaguing my research for quite a while now, and as far as I can tell, after a great deal of searching, there was only one “Rhoads & Sons” and they were, more fully, Thomas Rhoads & Sons, stationers and manufacturers of pens, pencils, and stationery in London. They produced and sold a great many things, like most good London stationers at the time, ranging from sealing wax to chess sets, from ink wells to blank books.

1848 thomas rhoads and sons sealing wax

1843 Th Rhoads sons pencils mark levy

They are listed in London directories as located at 1 Vine St. and active from 1833-1880.

As I looked over the ads that spanned from 1841 through the 1850’s, I find an interesting thing happening that seems to reflect a larger change in consumer tastes.

The earliest ads did nothing but mention them along with other top British names.

1841 Rhoads mention

But when we look at the ads that came out in the 1850’s, we begin to see a significant change in marketing. These newer ads struck me as more like American pen ads. They were often very verbose about the benefits of the pen (see the first ad above), and highlighted the “newness” and inventiveness of the pens. Most ads for British pens, especially by the 1840’s, merely mention the pen, maybe introduce a new style, and a few anodyne phrases. British pens in the 1830’s and into the 1840’s were viewed as the premium quality pens, against which all others had to be measured.

This is about as wordy as ads for British pens are in the 1840’s. This is a New York City stationer’s ad announcing the new Croton Pen from Gillott.

1844 Gillott intro to Croton pen

But by the 1850’s, American pen makers were becoming more aggressive about both the quality of their pens, but also about being American pens, appealing to a newly insurgent nationalism that became prominent in the 1850’s.

In their 1850’s ads, Rhoads didn’t trumpet their British origins, but instead felt the need to sell to the American public using similar language and styles as other American pens; focusing on innovation, new materials, and styles.

As we move into the 1850’s and see the makers who started in this new decade sell their pens, we’ll see more, and more explicit appeals to the public to buy American pens because they are American. This 1856 ad give you a preview of what we will encounter in the 1850’s.

1856 Wash Med let Am Children quote

Pen History, 1840’s: H. B. Herts & Sons, British Makers in America

Henry Benjamin Herts, born in 1794, was living in England when he had his family. His children included, his daughter Rachel (b. 1819), and his sons Henry B. Jr. (born May 26, 1823 in Nottingham, died 1884), Daniel born about 1825, Jacob,  and Lewis. They were all born in England.

In 1841 Henry Sr. opened a steel pen factory under the name H. B. Herts & Co, at 281 Bradford St. in Birmingham. According to Brian Jones’s book People, Pens & Production, the factory operated from 1841-1842.

In 1843, at age 49, Henry Sr. came to the United States and settled in New York. He created a partnership with his sons Henry Jr. and Jacob called H. B. Herts & Sons. They set up a factory at 509 Broome St. in New York City where they manufactured stationery (probably blank books), pen holders, and maybe pens.

The reason I say “maybe” is that while H.B. Herts & Sons is listed in various directories as a “manufacturer of metallic pens, penholders, stationery, &c” the advertisements promote the pens as being made in Birmingham. In a large ad in the Doggett’s directory of New York City for 1846-47, it explicitly says that the pens are made at the Bradford Works in Birmingham.

Doggett's New-York City directory, for ...

This wasn’t the first pen they started advertising. The first ads in 1845 mention the Alpha Pen.

1845 Herts sons alpha

In 1846 is when you first see the reference, above, to the amalgam pen you also find the claim “By Royal Letters Patent.” The only problem with this is that I cannot find a British (or American) patent that fits this pen. Perhaps someone else can find it, but it has eluded me. If you do find something you think works, let me know.

The Royal Letters Patent claim also shows up in an interesting ad in 1847. This ad claims that the Amalgamated Silver, Steel and Platina Pen was first introduced into the US in August, 1845 “at which time the manufacturers were unknown to the writing community; the pen, therefore, had to stand on its own merits.”

Because of the superior quality of the pens, they claim that between December 1845 and December 1846, they sold 375,000 gross, or 45,000,000 of their pens. It is in this ad, as well, that they refer to their business address as the “manufacturer’s depot” and list not just their NYC address, but also 35 Cornhill in Boston.

We can compare this 375,000 gross of pens Herts produced in 1845 with the 730,031 gross Gillott claimed to have made in 1843. Herts was no where near as large, but they were making quite a respectable number of pens nonetheless.

1847 Herts sons big ad

The family stayed pretty close, literally, through the years of the business. When the directories show both business and home addresses, Henry B. Sr. is shown as living with at least one, and often two or even three of his sons in the same house over the years.

There’s evidence that some of the sons made trips back to England in at least 1846 and 1849. It’s likely they kept the factory open in Birmingham and perhaps kept it running by other sons or relatives. Since we’ve not found evidence for the factory after Henry left in 1843, it’s not clear if they really still had their own factory, or just had pens stamped with their name by another maker, and just attributed them to their old Bradford Works.

Regardless, they kept selling the pens as H. B. Herts & Sons until 1853 when Henry B. Sr. retired and the old company dissolved. The new company, “Herts Brothers” continued to sell pens as well as import stationery and fancy goods in their new office at 241 Broadway.

An interesting ad/article in the March 2, 1854 Buffalo (NY) Morning Express gives us more information about the company. It talks about “Herts Brothers Amalgamated Iridium, Zinc and Platina Pens” and “The Messrs. Herts are at the head of the great house in Birmingham, England, for the manufacture of Metallic Pens. They employ about 500 persons in their extensive operations.” This pen is patented in England and the United States by ‘Herts Brothers.’ It is for sale at their splendid Emporium, 241 Broadway, as well as in different parts of the Union, England and France.”  If they truly had 500 employees then they were quite a good sized company. The well-known D. Leonardt, one of the largest of the independent makers in Birmingham, had 500 employees at its height in the 1880-1890’s, and that included their own rolling steel operation.

1854 herts bros ad

Alas, the “discerning public” did not flock to this pen, and in 1855, Herts Brothers was no longer listed. Jacob is still listed as a “stationer” but it does not tell us where, and Henry B. Jr. has set himself up in his own auction business.

1856 Herts auction

Interestingly, Henry B. Senior just can’t stay away from family, or completely in retirement. In the 1855 New York Census we find Henry B. Herts Sr. living with his daughter Rachel and her husband Jacob Davis. Both Jacob and Henry are listed as at the same business address with Henry labeled “jeweler” and Jacob as a watchmaker.

Henry Sr. died about 1856. Henry Jr. lived until 1884 when he died on a trip to England at the age of 63. Many of his children went on to start up their own businesses including another Herts Brothers, this time Herts Brothers Furniture.

The history of Henry Benjamin Herts still has some mysteries to be solved. It seems from the advertisements that the Herts family may still have had a factory making pens in Birmingham. It’s not clear if all of their pens were imported from that factory, or if some were made in the US, or if they got some from other Birmingham factories, or some combination of the three. Further research on the Birmingham side may be done, but the standard resources don’t mention the Herts family or the Bradford Works beyond that brief mention in Jones’ book. If they were as big and prosperous as the claims, then their omission from the standard histories is a significant one.

We also still have the mysterious patent claims. I cannot find any record of patents claimed in England or the US. For now, it remains yet another mystery.

Harry B. Herts came to America as so many others did, and while his pens seem to have, at least partly if not completely, been made in England, he chose America as his main marketplace as well as home. Because of that, I still consider H. B. Herts & Sons as another of the interesting American pen makers of the 1840’s.

 

Pen History, 1840’s: C. C. Wright & Co.

Charles Cushing Wright was born in Damariscotta, Maine in 1796. His early life was a story of hardship (orphaned!, abandoned!), drama (poisoning! oppression!) and hard work to overcome a lack of formal education or familial support worthy of a 19th-century novel.

The greatly shortened version is that he initially studied under a silver smith in Utica, in up-state New York, decided he would teach himself engraving, moved first to Savannah and then left for Charleston, S. C. after the great Savannah fire destroyed his workshop. In Charleston he met his wife, Lavinia Dorothy Simons. In 1820 they were married and in 1823 they moved to New York City.*

Once in the city he partnered with another talented engraver, Asher Durand, and Durand’s older brother to form Durand and Wright. Working together for four years, from 1823-1827 they became important bank note engravers.
Wright was a talented medalist (sculptor of medals and medallions), engraver and a die-sinker, the person who carves the dies used to make coins. Some consider him the premier American medalist as all of his training was in the US or self-taught. This 1848 medal commemorating Zachery Taylor’s victory over the Mexicans at Buena Vista is a good example of his work.

zach taylor medal
Wright was also active in the artistic community in New York City. He and Durand, along with Samuel F.B. Morse (of Morse Code fame), Rembradt Peale, Thomas Cole, and others were in the group of young and talented artists who broke away from the American Academy of Fine Arts to eventually form the National Academy of Design, an influential honorary society of artists that is active to this day as the National Academy Museum and School.
Through his work with the Academy he became friends with the well-known chemist James Mapes (father of the author Mary Mapes Dodge). Through Mapes, Wright came to know another chemist who had turned into an ink manufacturer, Thaddeus Davids. Davids had been making ink since 1825 and continued until 1889.

Thaddeus davids ad with location

Davids introduced Wright to the prosperous stationer David Felt. (see my post on the 1830’s when Felt had a short-run try at making his own steel pens under the name of Stationer’s Hall Pens.) For a time Wright was given a space in Felt’s workshops at 34 Wall St. to engrave seals for wealthy clients and make engraved plates to make custom labels. The fancier the engraving on a label, the harder it was to counterfeit.  Monograms and seals were all the rage at the time, and Wright’s work was well-received.

1840 ad for David Felt advertising Wright’s medallion stamps.

1840 David Felt medallions

1840 David Felt labels

In 1842, James Mapes’ son, Charles Mapes, joined with Charles Wright and Joseph C. Barnet and together they formed a company for making steel pens. It is not unlikely that they may have started with David Felt’s old pen making equipment as we no longer find references to Stationer Hall pens by that point, and there’s no record of Felt selling his equipment before this time. I’m sure however they started, with Wright’s abilities as a die sinker and engraver, they soon made their own dies and they began making pens under the name of C. C. Wright & Co.

1842 CC Wright American steel pens
C. C. Wright pens were well-received and consistently won top place in the American Institute’s fairs in New York City. (with poor Josiah Hayden’s pens coming in second every year they competed together)

1843 cc Wright american institute
They soon were offering a wide variety of pen shapes and types with over a dozen offered in 1844. They seem to have targeted especially businesses (like banking), and schools.
1844 cc wright listing types

1844 cc wright schools
His ads are often filled with testimonials about the quality of his pens from newspapers to whom he would send samples, from famous penmanship teachers, and from business folks.

1843 cc wright testimonials

1843 testimonials1

1844 cc wright testimonials

And in 1842, the same year they started making pens, C. C. Wright & Co. submitted a proposal to provide pens to the Treasury Department. Some of the references they used to get the attention of the Treasury Dept. included Judge Tallmudge, the city Recorder at the time, and “Professor [James] Mapes” who was to be in Washington DC and was going to drop off a few samples. The other references were W[illiam]. H. Cary & Co, importers of fancy goods, and Russell, Mattison and Taylor, one of the largest button manufacturers in NYC.
In the proposal to the Treasury, they offered the following pens at the following prices. Pens on cards were provided at a dozen per card, a dozen cards per gross.
On Cards
1. Imitation of the Perrian Pen – $2.75/gross
2. Columbian Eagle Pen – $3.00/gross
3. National Pen – $2.00/gross
4. Naval Pen – $2.00/gross
5. Elastic Pen – $1.80/gross
6. Knickerbocker Pen – $1.75/gross
7. Merchant’s Pen – $1.60/gross
In Boxes
1. School Pens – 75 cents/gross
2. Fine office pens, No. 1 – 87 ½ cents/gross
3. Fine office pens No. 2 – 75 cents/gross
4. Columbian Eagle Pens with holders – $2.50/gross
5. Imitation of Misely’s Pen (possibly Mosely’s pen?) – 50 cents/gross [link]
6. (late Hotchkiss and Co’s) pen – 87 ½ cents/gross
Holders and Handles were also to be provided. At $1.75 and $1.60 per gross respectively.

Wright continued to do engraving and medallions while also making money from his pens. An example from this time is this wonderful advertising note for his pens. (That’s Lafayette on the right) (image courtesy of the New York Historical Society)*

CC Wright Steel Pens certificate

In early 1847 Charles Wright sold his business for a “tidy sum” which allowed him to focus full-time on his medals and other engraving projects.

Unfortunately, Charles Wright died in 1854 at the relatively young age of 59.

There are three major questions still to be answered related to Wright’s time as a pen maker:

  1. Where did he get the tools for making pens? The story that’s been passed down says that while at David Felt’s he saw first-hand the difficulties Felt had in importing British pens. I suspect it was more that he saw a wide variety of pens and realized that with the right tooling it was fairly easy to make pens, and his knowledge of steel and its properties could come in handy. At the time there, again, weren’t many American manufactures. Atwood was out before 1841, and Hayden was just getting started, as was Mark Levy and Rhodes & Sons. Felt could haven advised him that this was a way to make some money, which Wright was in need of.
  2. To whom did Wright sell the pen making equipment and the business? I doubt the machines just disappeared. If he sold the business for a “tidy sum” then someone bought the assets and most likely began making pens. A likely candidate has yet to materialize out of a few possible options.
  3. What did a C.C. Wright pens look like? Obviously some were imitations of other pens, but none have been found as far as I can tell. If anyone finds one or a picture of one, let me know. More people than just I would be interested.

The 1840’s are shaping up to be an interesting decade. You start to have more serious artisans and industrialists trying their hand at pen making. It’s no long the inventor like Atwood, or stationer seeing if it’s cheaper to make than to buy, like Felt.

This sets us up for a whole different breed of professional pen makers to come along in the 1850’s and 1860’s.

* Many thanks go to Neil Musante, whose article in the Summer, 2014 issue of the MCA Advisory, the magazine for the Medal Collectors of America, was a source of tremendous help in the writing of this post, as was the personal correspondence with Mr. Musante who was generosity itself with his knowledge and help. Also, credit to the New York Historical Society who owns the amazing advertising note above.

 

Pen History: The Early Years – 1840’s, the Rise of the Americans

In the previous entries on pen history, the British manufacturers played a dominant role in the steel pen industry. Up through the 1830’s the Americans were minor players in many things, not just making steel pens.

At the beginning of the decade, the United States of America was still a fairly young country. The last signer of the Declaration of Independence to die, Charles Carroll, had only died in 1832. In 1840, there were only 26 states in the Union, with Michigan being the latest formed, in 1837. The formal border between Canada and the US wasn’t formalized until 1842. It wasn’t until the middle of the century that “base ball” is mentioned for the first time in print,

1845 baseball ny herald

and Frederick Douglass publishes Narrative  of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave.

The 1840’s saw a young country begin to grow into its power and geographic size. It saw the first travelers cross the Oregon trail, the evocation of Manifest Destiny, and the war with Mexico. The first adhesive postage stamp, the discovery of gold in California, and the invention of the first sewing machine by Elias Howe also show the inventiveness, energy and potential of this new nation.

By 1850 multiple makers competed in a very new, extremely rapidly growing market.

1850 sewing machinese

The 1840’s also saw a mini-explosion of new American steel pen manufacturers and sellers, as the techniques from Birmingham made their way across the Atlantic, machinery and tool making expertise was refined and began to spread outside the major industrial centers, and the demand for steel pens (predominantly British) began to rise at the same time as nativist feelings towards “buying american” rose as well.

Charles Atwood moves on to other pursuits after 1840, but several other new-comers step in to fill the void.

Some are short-lived, like Mark Levy, some keep going for over a decade (Myer Phineas). We have stationers who make pens, like Mark Levy and Myer Phineas, as well as inventors, artists and industrialists like C. C. Wright and Jodiah Hayden. We also have a rather strange anomoly, an American-based maker of British pens (Herts & Sons).

Instead of trying to write a single, very long post to cover everything, I’ll break up these makers into individual posts so as to be able to deal with them as best I can. I’ll ensure this list is turned into a list of links as these posts go up, so if you want to find one of them, you can get there from here.

Pen History: The Early Years – 1830’s, the British Invasion

It was in the 1830’s that things really start to cook. In 1830 we have Perry’s first pen patent, in 1831, Sampson Morden and William Brockeden invent the oblique pen and pen holder, also in 1831 is Gillott’s first pen patent, and in 1832 we find Perry’s second patent, the origin of the Perryan Double Patent Pen. Altogether, there are 16 British patents related to pens and pen holders in the 1830’s as opposed to only 2 in the 1820’s, one of which was for an inkstand.

By 1831, Perry is already shipping pens to the US.

1831 Perry ad

12 1/4 cents ($1.47 per dozen) is a lot less than Williamson’s 100 cents per pen of just 20 years before. Prices are starting to come down, but they have a long way to go before they reach true mass-production levels. By 1843, the large stationer David Felt is selling his high-end pens for $1.50 per gross, the cheap ones go for 1 shilling (about 60-cents at the time) per gross.

1843 david felt pens 12 quarter cents each

In 1832 we see Gillott start advertising in the prestigious Times of London. This December 11th ad also announces his move to a much larger factory space at 59 Newhall St. in Birmingham.

1832 gillott

Richard Mosley is an interesting character because in the next decade we begin to see him selling pens branded with his own name. It’s not clear if he’s making his own, or having one of the Birmingham makers do it for him as a custom imprint. This is a practice that lasts as long as steel pens are made and one that makes research into actual makers a challenge.

This issue of stationers and other merchants paying a pen manufacturer to make pens with their name on it goes back to practically the very beginning of the post-craftsman era. Was not Josiah Mason making pens for Perry with Perry’s name on them? Perry stopped making his own pens after 1829, and was solely concerned with design, and marketing.

This starts to really become a problem in this decade of the 1830’s as the number of names on pens starts to grow. It’s not always clear who is making the pens, and who is merely marketing them. John Mitchell made some pens for Gillott, Mason was making all the pens for Perry, and so on.

There were a number of new, smaller makers, but it sometimes becomes a challenge to untangle maker from seller unless we can find written statements of someone being a “maker” or “Manufacturer.”

As I mentioned above, the number of names on pens starts to drastically increase in the 1830’s. Only looking at pens sold in the US, in the 1820’s I’ve found evidence of five different brands of steel pen being sold. In the 1830’s that jumps to 17.

The British

British names being sold in the US include,

  • Deane’s
  • Gillott
  • Harwood
  • Heeley Radiographic
  • John Mitchell
  • William Mitchell
  • Knight
  • Perry
  • Sampson Mordan
  • Sheldon
  • Skinner
  • Warren
  • Williams
  • Windle’s

Of these, Windle’s were probably Gillott pens; Windle is identified as just a merchant in the patent he and Gillott share. But this is only a guess on my part.

Heeley was also a large purveyor of luxury goods, and most likely had his pens made by Josiah Mason. It was Heeley, after all, who had befriended the young Mason and introduced him to to his mentor Harrison.

A few of the remaining may be merchants and not manufacturers themselves, but it’s not always either easy to tell, nor is it cut and dried. Sampson Mordan, for example, was a merchant and purveyor of luxury goods like silver card cases and perfume bottles, but he was also an inventor and manufacturer as well.

Sampson Mordan

In 1822, Sampson Morden and an engineer John Isaac Hawkins, were granted a patent. This patent describes not only a way to encase a pencil or crayon in a tube, which became one of the first successful mechanical pencils, it also includes a description of pens made of tortoiseshell or horn whose tips are embedded with “larger pieces of diamond, ruby, gold or other hard substances.” While the shell or horn was soft, they would also embed in them small slips of gold to help stiffen and strengthen the primary substance. These were not, as you can imagine, inexpensive.

Mordan’s company made these composite pens for a while but they were rather fragile, and the tips came off pretty easily, which rendered them useless. But Mordan was not finished looking for alternatives to quill pens.

As I’ve mentioned before, he and William Brockeden, a painter and inventor in his own right, invented the first oblique nib as well as the oblique pen holder, with the patent granted in 1831. These were sold quite successfully, and were quickly copied as soon as the original patent ran out. But Mordan was not content to stop there.

In the early 1830’s, a watchmaker from London, James Gowland, created a way to pierce a steel pen and bend the resulting slip of steel back around to create a type of reservoir which could hold more ink in a single dip than a regular pen. This design may have been the very first such reservoir pen ever made.

It seems that there were some issues with his early design that prevented it from being manufactured easily, i.e cost effectively. Mordan, upon being shown the design,  developed some improvements which allowed for mass-production at an economical price, and Mordan then patented those improvements and began selling his Triple Point Pens, and his Counter Oblique nib (an improved oblique nib with reservoir, see figures 3 in the picture blow).

This caused a small kerfuffle with an anonymous letter written to the editor of the Annual Register of Popular Inventions accusing Mordan of stealing Gowland’s invention. The author, who signs the letter “Scrutitor (pro bono publico)” strongly implies he is not connected with Gowland, but is instead attempting to stand up for the inventor against a mighty giant like Mordan, for “the public good.”

A long and detailed answer to this letter was published in a later issue from William Baddeley of London, a prominent inventor in his own right, who spoke with some authority as one of the folks involved in negotiating the connection between Gowland and Mordan. Baddeley points out that Mordan’s patent is for improved methods to MAKE the pens, in other words, manufacturing methods, that made the pens commercially viable and that Mordan is not actually stealing Gowland’s invention but instead is working with the original inventor to make these new pens.

1836 Gowland Mordan triple point pen from Mechanics Magazine

As you can see from the diagrams, the slit of steel punched out is bent over top of the nib. This is the earliest example I’ve found of a reservoir nib, but far from the last.

As a note of side interest, in the article it mentions that the Nib #2 is what is known as a Lunar pen, so when one reads of Sheldon’s semi-lunar pens, also made in the 1830’s, you have an idea of the shape

1833 Sheldon semi lunar pens ad

The Americans

In the 1830’s the American market was only starting to wake up to the promise of steel pens. Peregrine Williamson was no longer producing, but even he saw the potential and he made some noises of coming back into the pen business in 1835, there’s no evidence he ever did.

Instead, I find two identifiable Americans advertising their pens in the 1830’s. One was a stationer, and one a true, Yankee inventor. (there are other names that pop up, like Davis & Co. in the ad at the top of the post, but it’s not clear if they’re British, American, a Stationer, an alternative brand of a known maker, or what. So, there are still more out there to be discovered, but this is what we’ve got for now)

David Felt and Stationer’s Hall

David Felt was a major stationer and blank-book maker in Boston from about 1815 until he expanded (and eventually moved) to New York City in 1825.  His named his offices at 245 Pearl after the famed Stationer’s Hall in London, home to The Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers. (the guild of stationers and book and newspaper printers)

1829 stationer hall bill head

He made a lot of his own paper goods, like blank books (ledgers, journals, etc…) and playing cards.  He first had a factory in Boston, and then moved it to New York City. When he needed to grow out of that, he expanded and moved to Brooklyn, on Front St. between Adams and Pearl, right where one of the piers of the Brooklyn Bridge stands today. Later, in 1844, his business was growing so fast he looked for land in New Jersey to open a second factory. This became a factory town, Feltville. He eventually sold this property around 1865 as he retired after 50 years in the stationery business.

David Felt was a large and successful business man. He jumped on the steel pen trade in the 1820’s. By 1839 he was selling his own line of Stationer’s Hall pens. It’s not clear if he was making them in his Brooklyn workshop, or if he had them imported from a British house with his own imprint. He did sell a great deal of British stationery and fancy goods, but then he made a lot of his own materials and so he had mechanics and tool makers who could have created his own machines to make his own pens.

Charles Atwood

Atwood pens pop up from the early-to-mid 1830’s up through 1840. While Atwood made his office in the stationery hub, New York City, he began a bit further north in Massachusetts. Much of the following history is from an 1880 history of the old town of Derby, Ct. where Atwood had a factory for a while.

Charles Atwood was born in 1801 in Hardwick, Massachusetts, but the family soon moved to Salem, NY. His father was in the woolen cloth trade, which Charles learned until the age of 19. His formal education was scarce, but his desire to learn, it is said, was prodigious, especially math. This skill with numbers served him well in later years where he was known for great accuracy in his engineering. “So skillful was he in Arithmetic that he could solve many problems which are usually solved by Algebra, of which study he knew nothing.”

When he was 19 he began working for a Giles Tincker of North Adams, Mass. at a woolen mill. During his two years there, he invented a better means to remove wool from the carding machine, called the double doffer. Even though he was granted a patent in 1830 for this discovery, he was never in a position to protect his patent so he lost all benefit from it.

Not happy with this situation, he left the wool trade and instead saw steel pens as an interesting problem and a growing market. He had married Lydia Crosby and around 1832 or 1833 he invented a new way of making steel pens. He had no actual knowledge of how they were made in England, so he invented his own, reverse engineering, so to speak. There is some evidence that his rather extraordinary wife Lydia, may have played a larger role in the invention than is normally granted by the 19th-century historians. According to the book Mothers and Daughters of Invention, “Lydia was surrounded by inventors. Several of her Hotchkiss ancestors, her first husband Orrin Crosby, her second husband Charles Atwood, and her son-in-law George Kellogg were all inventors.”

Charles’ initial manufacturing operation was rather modest.

In a little shop at Middletown [Connecticut], his machinery was driven by one horse, and continuing the manufacture of pens a few years, he came to Birmingham, and carried on the same business in the large building now owned and occupied by Summers & Lewis. This building he erected  and it was long known as “Atwood’s Factory.”

In 1834, his pens were awarded a Diploma at the American Institute’s fair in New York City. This was also the fair where Goodyear displayed samples of India Rubber. Atwood’s pens were displayed under the category of “Cutlery, Edge Tools and Hardware” as there was no category, yet, for steel pens.

An 1834 ad for Atwood’s pens appearing in The Evening Post (of New York)

1834 Atwood Patent Pens

In 1835 he entered his pens in the first annual fair of the Mechanics’ Institute on New York City. His pens were described as “very good of style and execution” and were awarded a diploma.

By 1836 Charles had an office at 72 Maiden Lane where he stayed until at least 1840, after which no trace of his pen making can be found.

1836 Atwood pens made in city

By that point he had moved on to another invention, a new way to making hooks and eyes for clothing and sewing them onto cards. After he was able to sell that patent (he’s getting smarter), he moved on to inventing and patenting a machine for making various kinds of specialized chains. And then a machine for making pins that even in 1880 was still so fully used by the industry it was called an “Atwood machine.” He finally died at the young age of 53 from a congestive fever after a life of invention and innovation.

The 1830’s innovation and expansion was primarily on the eastern side of the Atlantic. (the indomitable Charles Atwood as the main exception) Patents, new factories, wider markets, all saw the British steel pen trade, especially in Birmingham, explode.

In the 1840’s, the American entrepreneurs begin to respond and a new crop of manufacturer begin to come forth. But that’s for next time.

Pen History: The Early Years – 1820’s, Foundations Laid

From about 1805 until about 1820 there were only a few people making and selling pens, with Williamson and Wise being the largest and widest distributed. There may have been others who made pens still on the craftsman scale and sold locally, but they’re less visible from this distance.

All of that changed in the 1820’s. This is the time when the British, and especially in Birmingham, introduced mass production methods, and consistency of quality to leave the craftsman’s workshop behind and become a true industry.

There are several major names which first appear in this period, including James Perry, Josiah Mason, John and William Mitchell, and Joseph Gillott. These were not the only makers in the 1820’s, but they were the foundational innovators and inventors who took a craft and turned it into an industry.  These folks also have the most written about them. For a fuller account, visit the Birmingham Pen Museum and/or get yourself a copy of People, Pens and Production (PPP)*, a book of essays about the rise and history of Birmingham’s pen trade. Because there is more information available elsewhere, I’ll only cover an outline of the period to give you an idea of how this all started. Much of the information below comes from this interesting book.

Throughout the 18-‘teens, Wise was making his barrel pens and selling them throughout England as well as America. He continued doing this well into the 1820’s. But he was soon to have competition.

1827 Wise steel pens ad

Ad from 1827 for a NY Stationer

By 1820 James Perry was making pens in Manchester. He soon moved to London and became known for his inventive marketing and variety of pens. He was successfully making pens and selling them widely in 1828 when Josiah Mason, a small manufacturer of spit rings in Birmingham, sent him a few samples of an improved pen based on Perry’s own pens. Within a few days, Perry showed up in Mason’s workshop, in person, and hired him to start making the Perryan pens for the next 40 years.

Josiah Mason had been a hard-working entrepreneur from his childhood. When he was a young man he was introduced to Samuel Harrison, the split ring manufacturer who, in the 1790’s, had made pens for his friends, including the famous chemist Dr. Priestly. Harrison was impressed and not only hired Mason, but eventually chose him to take over his business. It was while Mason was successfully making his split rings (for key rings), and other steel “toys” (the term at the time for small buckles and other small, steel ornaments) when he saw some of Perry’s pens being sold in a stationer’s window. He purchased one and worked for a few weeks to see if he could make it better, especially focusing on better steel and manufacturing quality to improve flexibility. The results of these experiments set up Josiah Mason to be the maker of the famous Perryan Pens for decades to come before starting off on his own.

Mason’s factory eventually became the largest pen factory in the world, but before that could happen, a few other folks came along in the 1820’s to add their contribution to the industry.

The Mitchell Brothers (John and his younger brother William) seem to have been the first to really apply industrial practices and machines to the making of steel pens.

John started out making knife blades in 1820, and in 1822 he began inventing ways to apply machinery and other mechanical tools used to make metal buttons to the manufacturing of steel pens. “By applying the hand press to the processes of shaping, piercing and slitting pens he increased the rate of production, and cut costs. He also discovered a way of slitting steel pens after they had been tempered and hardened.” (PPP)

This application of machinery, especially the hand screw press, to the making of pens was the beginning of a real revolution in the availability, and especially the affordability, of steel pens.

When John Mitchell first began selling pens, his pens were 30s(hillings) a dozen. Within a few years, after the application of the machinery, the price fell to 1s 6d(pence) a gross.

John’s younger brother, William, worked with him for a while before setting out on his own and starting his own steel pen business. William eventually found great success and became one of the largest and most successful pen makers in the world.

In 1821, John and William’s sister Maria also began her entry in the steel pen trade by marrying a young man of Huguenot decent from Sheffield, Joseph Gillott.

Gillott had learned the trade of knife and scissor grinding in Sheffield, and brought that to Birmingham after the Sheffield cutlery trade took a downturn following the end of the Napoleonic wars. The stories of Gillott’s early years are numerous. He began making his own pens around 1827 in a crude workshop where he heated up the pens in a common frying pan over the kitchen fire. He quickly began to make money, and continued experimentation with the fineness and quality of steel, as well as adding the grinding of the nibs to increase flexibility. (An idea most likely arising from his days grinding scissors and knives as a young apprentice)

From these humble beginnings, Gillott went on to be one of the largest pen makers in the world, and many of his pens are considered the finest examples of the flexible pointed pen, and are highly valued by calligraphers to this day. But in the 1820’s, he was just getting started.

By 1820 in the United States, Peregrine Williamson seems to have lost interest in pens, leaving only Wise still advertising. These early British manufacturers hadn’t gotten to the point, yet, of shipping their wares to the poor, benighted savages in the former colonies in any great quantities. That is not to say people in the US weren’t using steel pens. You still find them being sold by stationers, like in this Chapman’s ad from 1829.

1829 chapman NY ad

 

And in 1828, the US House of Representatives spent a whole $1.00 on steel pens, (compared to $1,359.27 on quills).

The full on assault by the Birmingham makers on the American market wasn’t to start until the 1830’s, and when it did, it combined with a series of other elements to create a whole new booming industry. And when you have a boom, there are always people who want to get a piece of that pie, and the number of manufacturers began to grow rapidly on both sides of the Atlantic.

* People, Pens & Production in Birmingham’s Steel Pen Trade, ed. by Brian Jones MBE, Brewin Books, 2013.