Inkwells
- Emma Keswick
- 5 days ago
- 5 min read
What is an inkwell?
Inkwells are small containers full of liquid ink wherein one can dip a writing instrument (i.e. a quill) and write with the ink. They dominated handwriting for much of human history. The first 'inkwells' were used in Ancient Egypt over 4000 years ago, but they were quite different from the inkwells of the 20th century. Egyptian inkwells, also called scribal palettes, were more similar to a watercolour paint palette: pigment was placed in a hollowed out container (made of wood or bone), activated with water when ready to use, and applied to papyrus using a brush. Inkwells of various ages have been discovered all over the world, made of myriad materials such as the aforementioned wood and bone, clay, metal, and glass.
Our Inkwells
Let us first look at the material of our inkwells. The inkwells in our collection are all made of glass in various hues. Glass's natural colour is blue/green due to the iron naturally present in sand. This hue can be seen in glass panes everywhere, especially when they are viewed from the side. An obvious example of this colouring is the Underwood's Inks ink jar in our collection, which is an aquamarine colour. This is not an inkwell, per se, but a jar that would be sold full of Underwood's brand of ink, though its shape allowed it to function as an inkwell. More on that later.
We have several clear/colourless inkwells in our collection, like the inkwells in these next three images.
Prior to World War I, manganese dioxide (MnO2) was added to glass to make it clear and colourless. The compound worked well as a decolourizer on the short-term, but a reaction occurred between the MnO2 and ultraviolet rays when glass containing the compound was exposed to sunlight for too long. This reaction, called solarization, caused the clear glass to turn purple, as seen in the next two images.
The longer the glass was in the sun, the darker the purple hue got. Manganese was no longer used in glass during WW1 because it was needed to strengthen steel, which was in turn used to create weapons, ships, and other wartime necessities. It was far from the only thing people gave up as priorities shifted during the War. You can read more about the Okanagan during WW1 in our blog posts.
Another solarized purple inkwell in our collection is the Paragon No. 5 inkwell. On the bottom we can see a "Patent Pending" mark. This inkwell was produced before June 1913, which is when Frank A. Weeks got his inkwell patent approved. He aimed to create "a highly desirable and convenient inkstand" which features pen holders in the front and an attached slidable rubber lid that prevented the lids from being lost and allowed the ink to be easily covered between writing sessions (or between dips of the pen). The Grand Forks Sun fromAugust 5, 1927 published a joke that read "I once knew a man ... who was so economical he used cover (sic) his inkwell between dips in casse any should be lost by evaporation." This joke implies those who bothered to cover their ink between dips were stingy. Unfortunately for these economical writers, the above inkwell in our collection does not have Weeks' patented lid. Our Paragon No. 5 would have instead had two rubber lids that would need to be (inconveniently!) fully lifted off and placed back on after each use, lest they stay off and the ink dries in its well.
There is a dark blue ink jar in the collection that would have been coloured intentionally. Cobalt blue glass was made by adding cobalt oxide to glass.
Underwood
Underwood's inks were just one product sold by the Underwood office supply empire. Their most popular product was the Underwood No. 5 typewriter, which we have aboard the S.S. Sicamous. Before entering the typewriter business, John T. Underwood (b. 1857) sold inks, carbon paper, and typewriter ribbon. Typewriter ribbons came pre-inked and could immediately be inserted into a typewriter. Ribbons were also specific to different brands of typewriter; the Underwood typewriter, for example, would only be compatible with Underwood ribbons. Many modern typewriter collectors re-ink their antique ribbons, the process involved pouring ink onto a small section of the ribbon then rewinding it onto its spool, but most typewriter users of the era would have bought new pre-inked ribbons. Re-inking requires a specific form of ink that is not prone to drying out , which is different from the ink our Underwood jar would have held This jar, however, could have been used to refill fountain pens, inkwells, or used as an inkwell itself.
The Death of the Inkwell
Inkwells declined in use in the mid 20th century, caused by the rise of new writing tools.
The fountain pen, which held its own ink instead of requiring a dip into an inkwell after every few strokes, competed against the dip pen and inkwell in the first few decades of the 20th century. The modern fountain pen was patented in 1884 in the United States by Lewis Waterman, but it took a few decades for it to reach the relevance of its ancient competition. Even once it was a well-known writing instrument, people were still clinging onto their inkwells, The Daily News (Nelson) ran an ad on September 24, 1919 for
Waterman's Ideal Fountain Pens: "Its unfailing readiness to write everywhere and anywhere, without need of desk or inkwell, will save your time and multiply daily opportunities and accomplishments."
The same newspaper ran another ad for Parker Desk Sets on November 16, 1926:
"No Inkwells Needed on the Modern Desk Now...No longer do you need to dip, dip, dip a pokey pen each time you sign your name or write a few words at your desk."
These two advertisements show that the fountain pen was marketed as a more convenient, efficient, and travel-friendly alternative to the dip pen and inkwell. Despite these claims, the necessity for these advertisements shows that fountain pens had not eliminated inkwells as totally as one might have expected. Despite their advantages, they were neither cheap nor durable for their price; their fragility made them expensive to replace when they inevitably broke, certainly more so than a standard dip pen.
The real nail in the inkwell's coffin was the invention of the ballpoint pen. The ballpoint pen we are familiar with today was developed by Hungarian Laszlo Biro in 1931 and began being sold in 1938. This invention was quickly overshadowed by World War II, but the ballpoint pen had slowly but surely made its way to the United States by 1943, when Biro filed for an American patent. Once it was in North America, the ballpoint pen exploded in popularity, but was expensive to produce and thus expensive to purchase, allowing fountain pens and inkwells to linger for a few more years. A man in France, Marcel Bich, believed he could produce these pens at a significantly lower cost and bought the patent from Biro; he created his own ballpoint pen in 1940, the BIC. Where the fountain pen still needed its ink barrel to be refilled, making it only moderately more convenient than dipping into an inkwell as it still required purchasing jars of ink, Bich's pens were disposed of once the ink had run out, which took months to years The ballpoint pen also completely elimated the risk of spilling liquid ink because the reservoir was completely encased in plastic, unlike the fountain pen. Bich's design has hardly changed since the 1950's, and BIC remains one of the most popular pen choices today.
Sources
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WIiOiIzOTgyNDRlOS02MjJkLTRlZmUtOGI0OS04ZGIwNzE2ZWNjNWIiLCJ2ZXIiOiI0MW
Y3NTQwMy1jNmI5LTRiMjEtODNmOS0wNTViNzUzODc1MDEiLCJleHAiOjB9
pewriter
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WIiOiIzOTgyNDRlOS02MjJkLTRlZmUtOGI0OS04ZGIwNzE2ZWNjNWIiLCJ2ZXIiOiI0MW
Y3NTQwMy1jNmI5LTRiMjEtODNmOS0wNTViNzUzODc1MDEiLCJleHAiOjB9
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WIiOiIzOTgyNDRlOS02MjJkLTRlZmUtOGI0OS04ZGIwNzE2ZWNjNWIiLCJ2ZXIiOiJmYzk
xNzYyNS0xZGM1LTQ5YTYtODBjOC01YTJjN2NkMDljY2UiLCJleHAiOjB9
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