History of the Paperclip - The Industrial-Age Wire That Secretly Runs the Entire Global Bureaucracy #1006212

HISTORY OF THE PAPERCLIP
The Industrial-Age Wire That Secretly Runs the Entire Global Bureaucracy

It is one of the smallest objects on an office desk—and one of the strangest.
The paperclip looks almost too simple to deserve a history. A short piece of wire, bent into a few loops, and somehow it became indispensable to the modern world of paperwork.
But the story behind that little piece of metal is anything but simple.
History of the Paperclip follows the paperclip from the age of pins and paper fasteners into the explosive growth of industrial manufacturing and the modern office. Along the way, the story encounters inventors, patents, wire-making technology, manufacturers, advertising campaigns, competing designs, and the mysterious rise of the familiar Gem-style clip.

Samuel B. Fay patented a bent-wire fastener in 1867, while other inventors developed competing ways to hold papers together. By the late nineteenth century, improvements in wire and machinery were helping transform paperclips from clever little devices into inexpensive mass-produced office tools.

Then came the paperwork explosion.
Businesses expanded. Offices multiplied. Documents accumulated. Newspapers, letters, invoices, records, files, and manuscripts all needed to be organized—and the humble paperclip quietly became one of the tools that helped hold this expanding paper world together.
This is also a history of invention without a simple inventor. The famous Gem design was never patented, while numerous other paperclip designs received patents. The result is a fascinating trail of competing claims, forgotten inventions, clever machines, advertisements, and technological accidents.

From Victorian offices to modern desks, this is the surprisingly entertaining history of the tiny wire device that helped keep paperwork from becoming complete chaos.
Small object. Big bureaucracy. Stranger history than you ever expected.