Steel (Dip) Pen History Posts

[AAAndrew]

I have my first two history posts up on my new blog https://thesteelpen.com/.

 

In the first post I propose a division of the history of the steel pen into six periods.

1. Prehistory: up until the 18th-century. Metallic pens were one-off special creations.
2. The Craft Era: from about 1780's up to 1820. Pens were being made as commodities, but were still hand-made.
3. The Early Years: from 1820-1860 These are the foundational years that saw steel pens become an major, industrial commodity in Britain, and the first attempts at creating an American steel pen industry.
4. The Golden Age: from 1860-1830. With the rise of first Esterbrook, then Turner & Harrison, Miller Bros., Eagle, Hunt and many others, the American steel pen industry came into its own. It was also the height of variety, innovation, and marketing creativity.
5. The Decline: 1930's - 1950's. Fountain pens began to seriously kill off steel pen use and production. By the early 50's four of the big five American makers were either out of business or had stopped making steel pens: Eagle, Miller Bros., Esterbrook and Turner & Harrison.
6. The Lean Years: With Hunt as the only remaining American maker, and British consolidation leading to only a couple of companies, steel pens have become solely the domain of decorative writing and drawing. There's a slight resurgence in interest in pointed pen calligraphy and dip pen drawing, especially for comics, but where the industry goes from here is not clear.

I'm eventually going to address at least the first five of these periods.

 

My second post, just up, looks at the first and second periods: Prehistory and The Craft Era. The second period, from 1780 to 1820, is not well accounted for in the few histories already out there. I hopefully show how it is really a progression from the one-off practices of the Prehistory. There are a couple of transitional figures, and we see the first real successful steel pen makers in both Britain (Wise) and the US (Williamson). The pens are still predominantly hand-made, but their success, and a few innovations introduced, like the three-slit pen, lay the groundwork for the real revolution and explosion that happens in The Early Years.

 

Keep an eye out, and I'll post updates as I add to the blog. I've written a fair amount of this material in bits and pieces here on FPN, but I felt I needed to consolidate my research and discoveries and the blog is where this is happening.

 

I'm also capturing some of the my main research resources on my blog which may of some interest to others here.

 

Thanks for reading.

Andrew