The History of Writing Tools

Do you remember writing your first story idea or, maybe even your first manuscript, with pencil or pen and paper? Maybe some of you still prefer to write with pencil or pen and paper. Writing has an interesting history and has changed many times over.

Let’s take a look at the history of writing tools.

Over the centuries, texts have been discovered on materials such as cave walls, papyrus, clay, and silk. Writing was scraped or engraved on cave walls with stone tools. Many of the findings on cave walls included pictures, some of which were colored, using minerals like charcoal. A sort of pointed tool was also used to carve writing into clay tablets and on pottery.

Quill Pens

If you’re a history fan, I’m sure you’ve seen quill pens. Maybe you’ve even used one. They were popular in the United States in Colonial times, between 1600 and 1800. However, they required time to make and maintain. These pens were made from feathers of geese and other large birds. Also during this time, birch bark was sometimes used as a tablet because of the high cost of paper, as well as the fact that the available paper was dark and rough. During this period, ink was often made from nutgalls—abnormal outgrowths on trees caused by insects. These nutgalls were removed, mostly from oak trees, then bruised in water with a rusty nail to make a colored ink. “Plummets”—thin pieces of lead—were used to draw lines to write on.

Following the Revolution in the United States, from 1800-1850, writing books, (similar to what we call notebooks), with ruled lines came into use, and quill pens were replaced with steel pens. People, especially school children, also began using lead pencils.

Dip/Steel Pens

Although dip pens with metal nibs were used in Ancient Rome, they didn’t become popular until they were mass produced in the 19^th century. Inventor, Daniel Schwenter, created a pen using two quills that held ink instead of having to be dipped in an inkwell. During the 19^th century, in France, the first fountain pens came into use, and people liked that they were less messy and had no need of being dipped into an inkwell repeatedly. Near the end of the 19^th century, ballpoint pens were introduced, and after some updates, became more practical and cheaper than fountain pens. The Japanese invented felt tip pens in the 1960s, and these were soon followed by markers and highlighters.

Rollerball and Gel Pens

As a child of the 70s, I remember the rollerball pen’s arrival. Also similar to ballpoint pens, but did you know that the rollerball pens used a water base paint, while ballpoint pens used an oil base paint?

The popular gel pens, still found in stores today, were first manufactured and sold by Sakura Color Products Corporation of Osaka, Japan in 1984. These are also similar to ballpoint pens, but use a water base pigmented gel instead of ink. No wonder, my left-handed writing smears what is written with gel pen!

If you’ve been writing long enough, maybe you remember writing your first story idea, or even your first manuscript, with pencil or pen and paper. But, aren’t you thankful for today’s technology, where you can simply type your stories on a keyboard, and erase and correct errors with some extra touches of a few buttons?

Kelly F. Barr lives in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. She is married and has three sons. She writes historical romance. She has also been a blogger for ten years, and every Friday, you can find her Flash Fiction stories posted for your reading pleasure. She loves her family, including the family dog, books, walks, and chai lattes.

You can find her online at: Website: kellyfbarr.com MeWe: KellyBarr8