How did they sharpen pencils?

[BobSullivanPress]

Jim, this is not a personal attack at you, and thanks for showing examples of lead pencils that have been found.

However, pencils made of lead were about as commonly used as quill pens by the time of the Civil War. The pencil making business took off in the 1830s with the ability to manufacture pencils with graphite clay (still used) as the inside of a pencil. One of the more notable pencil manufacturers was the Thoreau family of New England, and their success allowed their son, Henry David, to sit around at Walden Pond writing instead of working for a living. See this link for his pencil making prowess...

http://www.uh.edu/admin/engines/epi339.htm

The reason that lead pencils are found in campsites and wooden ones are not is simple. Wood rots. Lead doesn't. Again, I'm not being nasty here, but we could also draw a conclusion, based on strictly archeological evidence, that labels were rare things to find on bottles, because every time a bottle is found there's no label on it.

And that James Townsend mechanical pencil: That's a Porte-Crayon, and even in the 18th century, it was considered an artist's tool, and not really a mechanical pencil. This is the type of pencil that artists use to make pencil sketches. It used a relatively thick stick of graphite so that thick, thin, and shaded areas can be drawn.

By the way, if you've ever tried to write with a lead pencil, i.e. made of lead, the line is very light. That's one of the reasons that graphite was so preferred over lead as a writing medium.

[Rob Weaver]

You'll also find that a lead pencil will poke through light paper, and takes some getting used to in order to write anything that will be legible afterwards.
What did that French patent pencil sharpener look like? (The American item may have looked just like it, and be a suitable substitute.)
I ran into a similar conundrum a few years ago when I wanted to know how they opened cans. We've all been told that soldiers opened them with knives and bayonets. I wouldn't recommend the later (except for oil cans) and the former dulls your knife. I seriously doubt that Mrs. Volunteer Soldier back home was ruining her kitchen knives by opening cans with them. Took me a long time researching 19th c. kitchen implements to find the answer.
Although a soldier may have sharpened his pencils with a penknife (which is dandy if you're careful and patient), how did his son do it back home in school?

[Rob]

And that James Townsend mechanical pencil: That's a Porte-Crayon, and even in the 18th century, it was considered an artist's tool, and not really a mechanical pencil. This is the type of pencil that artists use to make pencil sketches. It used a relatively thick stick of graphite so that thick, thin, and shaded areas can be drawn.

By the way, if you've ever tried to write with a lead pencil, i.e. made of lead, the line is very light. That's one of the reasons that graphite was so preferred over lead as a writing medium.

Yes. Porte-crayon. I couldn't think of the name at the time I posted.

I've sharpened both ends to a point, as stated above. The line it produces is almost as dark as a number 2 pencil, and darker than a number 3. If anyone wishes, I could send you a hand-written note as proof. Best of all, it won't get broken while sitting in the bottom of a haversack.

[Jim Mayo]

Jim, this is not a personal attack at you, and thanks for showing examples of lead pencils that have been found.

However, pencils made of lead were about as commonly used as quill pens by the time of the Civil War. The pencil making business took off in the 1830s with the ability to manufacture pencils with graphite clay (still used) as the inside of a pencil. One of the more notable pencil manufacturers was the Thoreau family of New England, and their success allowed their son, Henry David, to sit around at Walden Pond writing instead of working for a living. See this link for his pencil making prowess...

http://www.uh.edu/admin/engines/epi339.htm

The reason that lead pencils are found in campsites and wooden ones are not is simple. Wood rots. Lead doesn't. Again, I'm not being nasty here, but we could also draw a conclusion, based on strictly archeological evidence, that labels were rare things to find on bottles, because every time a bottle is found there's no label on it.

No offense taken. I just wanted to show that there were alternatives and was not at all suggesting that wooden pencils were not used.

However, I don't think that is the same as suggesting that there were no labels on bottles because bottles are not dug with labels. Only a professional archelogist would arrive at that conclusion.

[vmescher]

[QUOTE=
What did that French patent pencil sharpener look like? (The American item may have looked just like it, and be a suitable substitute.)
I ran into a similar conundrum a few years ago when I wanted to know how they opened cans. We've all been told that soldiers opened them with knives and bayonets. I wouldn't recommend the later (except for oil cans) and the former dulls your knife. I seriously doubt that Mrs. Volunteer Soldier back home was ruining her kitchen knives by opening cans with them. Took me a long time researching 19th c. kitchen implements to find the answer.
Although a soldier may have sharpened his pencils with a penknife (which is dandy if you're careful and patient), how did his son do it back home in school?[/QUOTE]

I've not found images of the first French patent by Bernard Lassimone in 1828 (#2444) or for another one by Therry de Estwaux who invented the first manual sharpener in 1847.

If you go to the site http://www.officemuseum.com/pencil_sharpeners.htm you will find a great number of images of pencil sharpeners. The earliest image they have of a manufactured sharpeners is one from 1869 (patent # 90,289).

In all the research I've done on pencils and sharpeners there has been no indication that they sharpened the points (pre-1865) any other way except by whittling or abrading them, whether a soldier or schoolboy.

I've also researched can openers and in cookbooks, I've seen the instructions for opening cans to use a chisel and hammer. Could you share your research and documentation on what you learned on how cans were opened? I would like to add it to my files. In _The American Cookbook_ (1854) there was an image of sardine opener but that may have been a British import since it predates the first patent of an American can opener by Ezra Warner in 1858. There were several can knives shown and listed in the 1865 _Illustrated Catalogue of American Hardware of the Russell & Erwine Manufacturing Company_ but they did not resemble can openers but looked like curved knives.

[Pvt Schnapps]

I would have to agree with earlier posters who suggest the use of pen knives. In my overview of expenditures from the War Department's Contingent Fund for the FY ending June 30, 1864 (appended to the 2006 "School of the Clerk," recently reposted on the AC Forum) I found exactly one pencil sharpener, purchased by the Surgeon General's office for 15 cents. By contrast, the various headquarters offices purchased a total of more than 330 pen-knives, though I estimate that fewer than 20 clerks still used quills. The WD also purchased in excess of 550 "erasers" that, if of the "ink knife" style, could conceivably also have been used to point pencils.

[hanktrent]

I haven't studied this, but maybe others have.

It occurs to me that a pencil sharpener based on modern designs, either the single-blade type or the rotary, produces a cone-shaped point.

Sharpening a pencil with a pocket knife naturally produces a flat point unless you work to make it perfectly round. But with a flat point, a pencil will write like a pen, with wide and narrow lines, which might be desirable in an era in which that was considered normal. Today, most felt tip and ballpoint pens write a single thickness, so it's natural for pencils to be the same way.

Has anyone looked at enough period pencil writing to notice if there typically were thick and thin lines? Were they taking advantage of knife sharpening to mimic pen points?

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[Pvt Schnapps]

I haven't studied this, but maybe others have.

It occurs to me that a pencil sharpener based on modern designs, either the single-blade type or the rotary, produces a cone-shaped point.

Sharpening a pencil with a pocket knife naturally produces a flat point unless you work to make it perfectly round. But with a flat point, a pencil will write like a pen, with wide and narrow lines, which might be desirable in an era in which that was considered normal. Today, most felt tip and ballpoint pens write a single thickness, so it's natural for pencils to be the same way.

Has anyone looked at enough period pencil writing to notice if there typically were thick and thin lines? Were they taking advantage of knife sharpening to mimic pen points?

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

I think that's a great observation, but I suspect that the idea was to get enough of a point to write with, without necessarily trying to mimic a pen.

And in practice, not every bit of pen work demonstrates wide variance in lines. I've seen stuff in the order book for the 16th Michigan that looked like it was done with a broad-headed calligraphy nib (maybe quill -- it was '61) followed by writing that could almost have been done with a roller ball.

In any case, here's an undated, probably late war, Confederate morning report from the Roy Bird Cook collection that looks very much like it was done in pencil, so you can judge for yourself: http://www.libraries.wvu.edu/Roy_Coo...ages/2311.html

To me it looks like sort of yes and sort of no...

[TimKindred]

I would have to agree with earlier posters who suggest the use of pen knives. In my overview of expenditures from the War Department's Contingent Fund for the FY ending June 30, 1864 (appended to the 2006 "School of the Clerk," recently reposted on the AC Forum) I found exactly one pencil sharpener, purchased by the Surgeon General's office for 15 cents. By contrast, the various headquarters offices purchased a total of more than 330 pen-knives, though I estimate that fewer than 20 clerks still used quills. The WD also purchased in excess of 550 "erasers" that, if of the "ink knife" style, could conceivably also have been used to point pencils.

Mike,

I think that your observation on the "ink erasers" is dead-on. These are constantly being offered for sale on ebay as "CW scalpels" and CW bleeders" and other falderal. Now, in fairness, some surgeons DID use the ink eraser as a lancer or small scalpel. They did so because in many cases, they were required to purchase and/or provide their own instruments, especially in medical school. The Ink eraser was much cheaper than a scalpel, and made a handy tool when given a good edge.

However, it was still made to be an eraser, and was a darned common item, so common that it's often not even mentioned much, or when it is, is misidentified by current readers who mistake it for the rubber variety.

Personally, I think an excellent subject for an article would be a description of the various tools and devices available and used for writing in our period. Pens, handles, erasers, blotters, wafers, the ubiquitous "red tape", etc. All defined and given illustrative examples might be just the ticket for the blooming writer.

Respects,

[Robert A Mosher]

Virginia -

Somewhere I may have what I found about the canopeners - they were simple wooden handled 'bayonet' type canopeners and according to one source the Union Army actually ordered some 50,000 for the Army during the war. I tracked down a simple model with an unpainted wooden handle and what appeared to be an iron (not steel) 'bayonet' on it (no other utensils attached like a cork screw) for our company cook gear.

Re sharpening pencils - the Boston Journal's Army Correspondent Charles Carleton Coffin was repeatedly described using a pencil and a leather covered notebook in the field as he followed the army. Doing the same, I have found that the penknife is a good solution since it is a handier size than the pocket knife I also carry - I can keep the penknife in a waistcoat pocket and pull it out more quickly and easily. I also don't have to think about what I last used the pocket knife for or what I may use it for next.

Robert A. Mosher