Histories Of The Steel (Dip) Pen

[AAAndrew]

For those of you interested in sources that talk about the history of the steel dip pen, I thought I'd share the main ones I've found. If anyone knows of others, I'd love to hear about them.

 

There are three books on the history of the steel (dip) pen that I know of that have been published.

 

1. Henry Bore's The Story of the Invention and Manufacture of Steel Pens, 1886.

2. A. A. S. Charles, The Steel Pen Trade: 1930-1980, 1980.

3. Brian Jones (editor), People, Pens, and Production: In Birmingham's Pen Trade, 2013.

 

There is a fourth book that touches on it as well:

John Thackray, Josiah Mason : a biography : with sketches of the history of the steel-pen and electro-plating trades, 1890.

 

All of these focus on the British steel pen industry.

 

There are also several articles I've found that touch upon the subject as well, with a few that have information on the US pen trade. None are complete or completely accurate.

1. Boston Mechanic, and Journal of the Useful Arts and Sciences, "August Notes," August, 1835
2. The Saturday Magazine, History of Writing Materials: Part 2, The Steel Pen, Feb. 17 1838.
3. United States Magazine, "Writing Pens: How Steel Pens are Made", April 1857 (detailed description of how Washington Medallion Pens were made)
4. American Journal of Education, "XIII Specimen Notes of Lessons", 1861
5. Birmingham Daily Post, "Steel Pens", June 26, 1869. In this short letter to the editor, the writer says that the history of the steel pen has already been lost and calls upon readers who were part of the early years to contribute stories. This leads to a series of letters with more or less true accounts of the years from 1800-1830.

There are others, but they are usually short snippets that are derived from the above sources, or constructed out of pure speculation, rumor and fancy. By the 1880's, so much of the narrative had been decided on and never varies through the years. It was when I began to search out old newspaper advertisements that I realized that there was a whole other world of early manufacturers whose stories were lost just a few decades later. That's what has led me to my work on https://thesteelpen.com/.

 

The one that has helped me the most for the early years is Bore's account. It was originally published in Britain as a pamphlet by the Cornish Brothers in 1886, but the 1890 Ivison, Blakeman version is the American edition. For father's day I got myself a treat. I tracked down an actual copy of the 1890 publication and purchased it for myself.

 

 

I'm such a hopeless steel pen nerd.

[AAAndrew]

I've posted this with links to their online versions out on my web site.

 

https://thesteelpen.com/research-resources-histories/

[pen2paper]

fascinating.. wondering if you're going back to origins, and if any of these, perhaps once apprentices included any at Boulton, makers including small decorative?

Could be later & newer process

[AAAndrew]

Thanks, pen2paper. Not exactly certain what you’re asking. If you check out my site, I do touch upon pre-industrial pen makers where they are known. I’ve not found any mention of Boulton, assuming you”re talking about the city in England.

[Greenie]

Here is an interesting related poster in German that I saw for sale recently. Link below for an image you can enlarge, and in line image for those wanted a quick look.

 

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/uploads/imgs/fpn_1531770451__from_steel_to_pen.jpg

 

[Ink Stained Wretch]

....

The one that has helped me the most for the early years is Bore's account. It was originally published in Britain as a pamphlet by the Cornish Brothers in 1886, but the 1890 Ivison, Blakeman version is the American edition. For father's day I got myself a treat. I tracked down an actual copy of the 1890 publication and purchased it for myself.

 

 

I'm such a hopeless steel pen nerd.

 

That's great. Thanks for the links. I'm sure I'll get around to reading them.

 

And it's good to indulge yourself with stuff like this one in a while .

[sidthecat]

My current object of interest is the 19th century gold pen, which seems to be of an older and simpler technology, but at the same time seems to have been a direct ancestor of the fountain pen nib. Is there any information on that evolution?

[AAAndrew]

The person who really knows the gold pen stuff is David Nishamura. Of course, being the new president of the PCA, he's a bit busy.

 

Like steel pens, gold pens were made as one-off or artisan-created items from fairly early. I've found advertisements from the 18th-century London newspapers advertising Gold, Silver and Steel pens.

 

Their main problem is that they wore out so quickly. The first gold pens with iridium tipping were made around 1825 by the prolific American inventor, living in England, John Isaac Hawkins. He's the same one who invented the Polygraph used by Thomas Jefferson for writing multiple copies of a letter at the same time, among many other inventions.

 

Hawkins sold the rights to a Rev. Cleveland, another American living in England, who, in 1835, got a watchmaker in Detroit, Levi Brown, to start making the pens. After that, gold pens spread quite quickly. Gold pens were made very differently than steel pens, and were made more widely. It was something most good jewelers could do and most early makers were also jewelers, or started out in that or a related trade. There are so many more gold pen makers than steel pen makers, and almost all of the really good ones were American.

 

It was one of Levi Brown's assistants, John Rendell, who advanced the production of these pens by inventing machines allowing more pens to be made more quickly than the old methods of by hand. His methods and machines spread, including to Josiah Hayden, who, after selling his early steel pen making business, went into making gold pens. Hayden and Dawson pens are extremely rare. You're most likely to find pens made by the guys to whom he sold the business in 1848: Dawson, Warren & Hyde. I have one of their pens. They made a lot of them in their factory in Western Massachusetts. As I pointed out in my article on Hayden,

 

In 1855, Massachusetts took inventory of the various industries doing business in the state. In Boston there were two gold pen manufacturers and the previous year they had made 6,500 pens with a capital investment of $3,500 and employed 6 people.

Dawson, Warren & Hyde, on the other hand, way out in the wilds of western Massachusetts, that same year, made 80,000 gold pens, using a capital investment of $25,000, employed 13 men and 12 women. Their gold and silver pencil case business manufactured 40,000 items, captial of $12,000, and employed 24 men and 11 women. And their steel penholder business made 6,000 gross penholders with a smaller capitalization of $3,000 and employed 4 people, 2 men and 2 women.

 

 

 

After 1850 you begin to find some of the bigger names in gold pens. Two of the largest, Morton and Fairchild, achieved success through continued improvements in hte pens they made. Morton figured out ways to better temper the gold and get more flexibility from a material not naturally known for springing back from being bent. Fairchild, who worked for Rendell, was the first, around 1851, to embed the iridium in the gold rather than weld it on, and he became one of the largest gold pen manufacturers in the country.

 

This is a very basic sketch of the early years. It's about all I know except that you find all kinds of names when you look for gold pens. Unlike steel pens, these names seem to actually be the makers, as any good worker in gold could make gold pens and sell them for quite a profit, so a lot of people did.

 

They are quite beautiful, and the variety of the makers is quite interesting. I can easily see how they can become fun to collect. Perhaps some day I may expand my dip pen horizons. Meanwhile, I have an easy-to-manage collection of less than half-a-dozen. The best two are my oblique gold nib made by Piquette in Detroit sometime between 1845 and 1860. The other is a Dawson, Warren and Hyde for which I have no pictures yet.

 

Enjoy your gold pens, and if you find out more, let us know!

Edited July 26, 2018 by AAAndrew

[sidthecat]

That’s a beauty! And your narrative explains the proliferation of penmakers in New York. Some of these nibs are utter flex monsters, beyond the capacity of any fountain pen nib, and jolly fun to write with.

I don’t do calligraphy, but it adds a lot to the writing experience.