The pencil man of Concord

by philg

People said that London was a center of theater and music but this is my second night here and there doesn’t seem to be much action in town.  Perhaps it was not London, Ontario to which folks referred.  Anyway, in between test-flying Diamond Star N505WT, I’m reading The Pencil by Henry Petroski, 354 pages that demonstrate conclusively that at least one area of history has been justifiably ignored.


It turns out that, before setting off for Harvard College, Henry David Thoreau devoted quite a bit of time to figuring out how to blend graphite powder and clay into a pencil that could compete with the best English and French products.  He and his father were very successful pencil merchants in the 1840s.  As cheap German imports made the business less profitable the Thoreaus moved into supplying graphite powder for electrotype printing.  In 1853 Thoreau’s friends asked him why he’d stopped making pencils.  He responded “Why should I?  I would not do again what I have done once.”

8 thoughts on “The pencil man of Concord”

  2. Reminds me of this apocryphal story about pencils and US space program (I used to be quite interested in urban legends):

    During the space race back in the 1960’s, NASA was faced with a major problem.  The astronaut needed a pen that would write in the vacuum of space.  NASA went to work.  At a cost of $1.5 million they developed the “Astronaut Pen”.  Some of you may remember.  It enjoyed minor success on the commercial market.

    The Russians were faced with the same dilemma.
    They used a pencil.

    http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp

  3. I had heard another problem with graphite pencils was that the small amount of conductive graphite dust created when writing was judged a risk to certain equipment. I had heard they investigated metal mechanical pencils which were commonly available at the time but jumped at the inexpensive “space” pens due to the conductive dust issue.

    The story is still funny, though, for the reasons stated in the Snopes article.

  4. That’s really interesting! I’ve been an admirer of Thoreau’s writings, and have even visited Walden Pond and the little mock-up of his place, but I had never learned that tid bit. Thanks!

  5. LOL: as a Londoner, your first sentence started my blood boiling until I realised you were pulling my leg! (“Whaddya mean ‘not much action in town’? This is the liveliest city on earth etc etc”)

  6. well thats a realy past story , the English and French products this days , where in a good position!!

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