Let's Do the Time Warp Again

[amh210]

Perhaps you recall, have researched, have chatted with seniors, or seen lots of old movies about how Fountain Pens were used in offices when they were the common, ordinary writing instrument. I wish I could ask my grandparents or others in the most senior generation, but perhaps, by working together we can enjoy answering these questions.

 

What was it like when the FP was a common office tool?

 

Did everyone own and use their own FP or did offices supply them (like they do with Bic's today)?

 

Did you own your own ink bottle or was there a communal office supply (as there was in most classrooms)?

 

Did "managers" ink their own pens or was that a "clerical" function?

 

Was it a "status" factor if you had a Parker, Sheaffer, Estie, or Arnold?

 

Was it a "status" factor if you kept a Desk Set?

 

What had "more" status, a single pen Desk Set or a Double (I'm presuming a single since only the "bookkeeper" needed the double for the dreaded red ink)?

 

Did one keep one's ink and pen in the office or did it commute?

 

Did one fill the FP at home or in the office?

 

Where there "sanctioned" brands and/or colors of ink?

 

How important was handwriting when it came to securing a job? Secretarial? Managerial? Professional?

 

Were there "cool" pens for the Yuppies and "stodgy" pens for the greying temples?

 

Could/would a woman use a man's pen and vice versa or was it akin to being caught in the wrong bathroom?

 

What was around the office to deal with the inevitable ink blots, ink spills, or other FP disasters?

 

If we wanted to push history back a bit further, what about FP usage was influenced by it's predecessor, the dip pen? Was this different than how FP usage influenced the nearly universal transition to the cheap ball point pen?

 

I could think of more questions if I worked at it but I'm really curious about what the "routines" were. FP's are an odd quirk for we hobbyists, but when they were just common tools, what sort of usage patterns were normative.

 

Thank you for taking the time to think about these questions, respond for our common edification, and most importantly, if you know folks with first-hand experience in the office world of the 1930's to 1960's, ask them about it and share their ideas with us here.

 

Andy Hoffman

[Polyhistor]

Hello Andy,

 

first of all, I´m sorry I can´t contribute any useful information, but nonetheless I wanted to chime in and say your questions are very interesting and well thought and I´m looking forward to see them answered!

 

Regards, A.

[FLZapped]

I saw that time warp and realized that is was before me. Even with my earliest recollection of school, the ballpoint was king. Bics were being shot out of a rifle and shownn to still write. (Bet they can't do that now with the all plastice tip assembly)

 

There were fountain pens, but they were well on their way out. Sadly, enyone in my family who could remember has long passed away.

 

Sadly, it's the three stooges gags with fountian pens that we see these days.

 

-Bruce

[kissing]

My parents used Fountain Pens as their normal writing instruments when they were in school. (around 30 years ago?)

 

 

That's all i can contribute i'm actually curious myself, hehe

[Sparky]

I had to use fountain pens all through grade school---starting first grade--- yes. I remember having a shaeffer and there were some kids who had pens with a hooded nib.... (Upon reflection, I'm sure they were the cheaper versions of Parkers). I remember one of the nuns having a black hooded nib (I assume it was a parker). We (all kids) would have to go stand in-line with their copybooks and she would either stamp it with nice angel or something like that, or she would take out her hooded nib pen and circle it.

 

For that reason I thought she had anold-person's pen, so I never wanted the hooded nib kind, but loved the shaeffer pens. Although I remember her pen being better looking than what some of the kids had which which why I think it was probably a Parker 51. This was in the 60's

 

Sorry for the old story...

 

At school kids never thought about pens... we did not oogle them or anything. We treated them as kids today probably treat a ball point pen. If a new color came out, and a kid had it, someone might say "what a cool color,etc" but that would be it... Just never really talked about it. Every week some kid would have an ink problem, but because most kids had cartridges it wasn't as if a whole bottle of ink spilled on the floor. I do remember seeing kids with ink blots in their shirt pockets.

 

I remember the nuns and lay teachers making us think that ballpoints were "bad pens", however. In addtion, I remember when we had corrections to make because we either spelled a word wrong, etc, that we had to put the error in parantheses, and not cross out the word. Also everyone in the class had a pencil case.... kids probably oogled more over the pencil cases and lunchboxes more than the pens. Nowadays I don't see pencil cases as being that prevalent. In fact about a year ago, I went looking for a simple black pencil case and couldn't find one. So I had to ante up and buy a black leather one from daytimer.

 

Color-wise... I remember kids shying away from black fp's. Most of the colors were red, blue, green and gray that they had.... My favorite was the semi see through red schaeffer FP.

 

The teachers and nuns also used the FP's to write in their Planner. I had to bring my teacher's down to mother superior's office once a week, and I remember looking in it a few times and found my teacher's handwriting to be awesome. It helped me see that because I thought--- this handwriting stuff they are teaching us must be important, if my teacher has to also do it.

[mike1]

I'm 60 years old and I used both fountain pens and ball points in school. My parents bought me a PFM for a birthday gift and I used that pen during my junior and senior years in HS. Prior to that time I used a Parker T-ball Jotter as my go to pen. Sheaffer also made a good ball point and this was my second choice for a ball point. I'd have to go back at least one more generation to find someone who used a fountaim pen at work. Unfortunately, my mom is the only one left who could answer some of these questions and her memory is not too good. My grandfather would have been the perfect to answer these questions because he was a banker and I know he used fountain pens because I once got in trouble when I was about four because I destroyed the nibs on several of his pens that I found laying on my grandmother's dresser.

[Roger W.]

I have my Grandfather's Parker - a green striped vac. He was clerk for many years in a small village in downstate Illinois. He was also in the IBEW and you'll see me with this valise at pen shows. Anyway, he was a fellow that wrote a lot. He is well known in the family as having had a beautiful hand when it came to writing. The Parker shows a fair deal of wear as well. I imagine he used it daily from the 40's until probably the 60's. My Dad vagely remembered him using it anyway.

 

He knew I was interested in pens but, maybe he had forgotten about the Parker before he died 20 years ago. We found it when my grandmother passed away a couple of years ago while cleaning up the house. Martin Fergusen restored it for me, the cap threads weren't engaging, works great now, thanks, Martin.

 

Besides some cheap pens it appears that the Parker was the only decent pen he owned. I really think most folks only carried a single pen. We had to get to throwaway ballpoints for people to have such a disregard for writing.

 

Roger W.

[PaulK]

Great(!) inquiry. Unfortunately, I can't contribute to the response. My primary school years were in the late 60's & 70's. Fountain pens were just something people used when they wanted ink stained hands and clothes. Growing up, other than the very(!) cheaply five & dime pens, I don't recall seeing any fountain pens of note (none in my boyhood home).

 

However, I do recall seeing some ads. (on here?) where these professional looking men were admiring a '41, also another ad. where a good pen was mentioned as the perfect Father's Day gift.

 

It would seem to me that fountain pens would be looked at like the well-made gold watch. In watch collecting, there were a number of dollar Ingersolls made that resembled some of the better watches (however, the plating was good for a couple years). The internal mechanism, well, unlikely to be repaired. In any case, I know that a good Bulova, Hamilton, etc. was coveted. I imagine it would be the same with a pen.

 

Again, wonderful post Andy. I'm truly looking forward to seeing some of the responses.

 

Paul

[Lloyd]

Last night, I watched the 1927 movie "Uncle Tom's Cabin". In one scene, a lawyer at an Inn takes a dip pen and a small ink pot out of his suitcase to sign a contract.

In 1957, My folks were stationed in Italy. My dad said that the merchants were peddling "P. Arker" pens (sort of like Roleks watches in NYC).

Lastly, my dad, who was born in Brooklyn in '32, said that each year in school, at least one of his classmates would have a sac break while in their pocket. Mostly, Watermans were used among his classmates.

[BobR]

Oh this brings back a couple of memories. My first job in the early '70's was with an insurance company and on the first day the manager of my department presented me with a black fountain pen. In those days the rates and values behind life insurance policies were calculated manually (using old Friden calculators!) and entered on very large worksheets which I think we called "broadsheets", quickly morphed to "bedsheets". I spent many hours doing that and I believe the fountain pens were used for permanence, as ball-point pens were available and used for everything else. Black ink only, though I have no recollections of actually who and how the pens were filled. I imagine there was a communal bottle for each clerk (and that's what we called ourselves--that seems to be a vanished occupation!) to use. This was just when this work was being computerized thanks to the IBM 360 and everything changed within a couple of years.

Edited June 4, 2006 by BobR

[Sidney]

I'm guessing that pencils were as common in the offices as the Bic is today.

[JRodriguez]

Like others, I can't add anything. But super questions Andy!

[Sparky]

We should probably post this question to a senior citizens website.... I' afraid most of us are too young to have used these heavily at work (except for Bob R). Does anyone know of good sites to post to?

[PaulK]

Just thinking about this more: my grandfather's 'jewelry' consisted of two (very elaborately decorated) 18 kt. gold pocket watches w/vest chains, a Sheaffer ballpoint, a wedding ring, and a couple nice pairs of gold cufflinks. That's it. I could not imagine him ever wearing, for instance, a bracelet or a neck chain. By our standards: very simple. I got to believe that a person would want the best ('best' being defined as quality yet non-pretentious) as they moved up the corp. ladder. I could easily imagine the "ooooo's and ahhhhh's" when someone made that first purchase of a Vacheron or Breguet pocket watch. I imagine the same would be said from going from a simple near no-name fountain pen to a Parker Duofold.

 

I know when I first entered the workforce, sanctioned ink was black, blue, or blue-black (must me able to be copied). Any other colors were reserved for personnel in the print/art dept.

 

Hey..a bit OT: I remember one event where someone used a yellow highligter (Dilbert moment) on a position paper that went to the boss and receiving a company-wide note informing us that he knows very well how to read and that he never wanted to see a paper to his attention that highlighted what the author believed to be the important points. My supervisor told me and the other folks to remove highlighters from the premises.

 

Ok...climbing off again...smile.

 

Paul

[sonia_simone]

I wonder if there are some answers in old novels, like the Dorothy Sayers series. Must drag out my copy of _Murder Must Advertise_.

 

Although it's probably one of those things so obvious to readers at the time that no details were given.

[RLTodd]

I'm guessing that pencils were as common in the offices as the Bic is today.

Pencils and dip pens. Fountain pens were very expensive.

 

People in western countries with our relatively high modern standards of living have a great deal of difficulty in understanding how relatively expensive a fountain pen was. It might help if you consider a dollar pen as twenty loaves of bakery bread. In the 1920's (the roaring twenties a decade of historically rapid economic expansion) you were talking about a $1,200 average annual income. That is average not median, in those days you still had a large percentage of the population on the farms, many of who saw only the cash money they could get from their truck gardens or egg money.

[Mike]

I moved recently (hence the absence from this forum) and so can't lay hands on it at the moment, but I have a bound volume of the Gregg Writer from 1940-41; in addition to shorthand exercises and contests all other things Gregg-related, it offered a fair amount of advice for secretaries, or women about to enter the secretarial workforce.

 

One of the articles was something of a "In addition to whatever specific tasks my employer gives me, what things am I implicitly expected to do as part of my (secretarial) job?" thing.

 

The reason I bring this up is because aspiring secretaries were instructed to fill their boss's pens nightly...

 

That said, secretaries in those days were pretty much typists, and it seems that it was de rigeur for pretty much *everything* in an office to be typed, so the impression I get is that pens were only really used for signiatures and rough drafts of correspondence, in rare instances where they weren't typed from dictation. (In fact, as more men were entering the secretarial workforce, to counter the gender-specific stigma of "secretary", the *modern* term in 1941 was, I kid you not...

 

...dictator.

 

But I digress. As usual.

[tonyv]

I'm guessing that pencils were as common in the offices as the Bic is today.

Pencils and dip pens. Fountain pens were very expensive.

 

People in western countries with our relatively high modern standards of living have a great deal of difficulty in understanding how relatively expensive a fountain pen was.

Proportionally, what would be the modern equivalent of an everyday fountain pen back then? How much would it set one back in today's funny money (US)?

[RLTodd]

Proportionally, what would be the modern equivalent of an everyday fountain pen back then? How much would it set one back in today's funny money (US)?

That is a very difficult question to come up with a reasonable answer. You can use www.dol.gov for the inflation calculator to estimate the purchasing power of any years dollar relative to today. But you come in with a problem adjusting for the increased standard of living up to 1960 or so, and then the slight decline since then. A third variable that is really hard to control is the effect of technology and the industrial shifts where you no longer have economies of scale with certain things like nibs and horse shoes that you used to have.

 

I think most writing instrument functions have been replaced by word processors. (Even the UPS and FedEx man quit using pens during the last decade.)

[Sparky]

In addition to inflation and technology is the fact that gold prices have climbed way above inflation which would be a major contributor to the increased costs.