Stationery: where did they come from?

Even some half a century ago it was possible for the fingers to count the items and materials that people have used as stationery. Today, when technological progress has reached incredible heights, the diversity of this group of products is simply amazing. One can only imagine a few dozen names of such products.

Almost everyone uses stationery every day in large numbers at home, at school, in College, in office etc. They have become an integral part of our lives, but very few who knows or even tries to know something about the origin of the surrounding pens, pencils, markers, paper, etc. In this article we will try to reveal the historical curtain and look in the root of the issue.

Origin of term

walk into any office supply store, you can make one obvious discovery: under the same term, it turns out, is hiding a huge amount of diverse products and materials. Should we push the issue, why is this happening, and why these items are called stationery, not something else.

As is often the case, historical and contemporary interpretation of the term may have diverged. In antiquity and up to XIX century stationery was understood mainly stationery. As such, the term did not exist and then existing term of the office meant not services, and the persons responsible for official public Affairs. Today, the range of people involved in such a process is much broader, so stationery is often called office facilities.

the history of the invention separate stationery

• Paper is one of the main representatives of this class of goods, and its origins can be traced from the times of Ancient Egypt. However, neither papyrus nor the parchment did not possess sufficient technological qualities for mass production and application. The first prototypes of modern paper appeared in China sometime in the beginning of II century BC;
• Handle is the main tool for writing, which in its modern form appeared in the middle of the last century due to the inventive talent of the journalist Laszlo Biro;
• Pencil classic core option was proposed by the French scholar Nicolas Conte in the late eighteenth century. He is the author of the formulation of the mixture of graphite bases rod. After 75 years, his American colleague A. Townsend developed the first model of a mechanical pencil, having made a kind of technological breakthrough in this area. Was reduced the useful volume of the stem and loss of material when sharpening: in this case it is not necessary, because the rod can be mechanically protrude from the holder;
• Eraser first saw the light at the end of XVIII century and at its heart, it is not difficult to guess, lay the rubber mixture, subsequently replaced by rubber
• Range in the classic version was proposed in France about 200 years ago, during the scientific revolution and create a new system of weights and measures. On the territory of the Russian Empire it began to be used thanks to the efforts of prominent scientist Dmitri Mendeleev;
• Clip, as a self-contained product, was invented at the turn of XIX and XX centuries, thanks to the experiments of the Norwegian engineer Vaaler. However, the first patented production model began to conquer the world three years later in the United States. With a paper clip is also an interesting story of national unity and resistance during the Nazi occupation of Norway in world war II.

the list could go on and on, because of items that fall under the definition of stationery, chock-full in every house, not to mention the office. Without them can not do any day of our lives even in the more space is required for computer equipment.

Translated by "Yandex.Translate": translate.yandex.ru.