Getting the Lead Out
Wherein I get two discoveries for the price of one
Before I get started, I wanted to thank you for reading and ask you to forward this to someone who you think will think it’s cool.
A few years ago, one of my brothers (I’m the eldest of six) texted the rest of us a photo of a pretty impressive whiskey collection with the note, “I think I have too much whiskey,” to which another brother replied, “Lie to us, just don’t lie to yourself.” It was the first time I heard that little aphorism and it tickled me.
I’m thinking of it now because, while I don’t think I lied to myself, I feel like maybe I wasn’t as truthful as I could have been. Either way, there’s no Object History this week because I caught myself out at self-deception.
If you’re just tuning in, Object History aims to tell deep-dive stories about literal objects I’ve come across and wondered about. The first chunk covers “Oscar Pens” an obsolete brand with a backstory exceeded in its kookiness only by the lengths I’ve gone to run it down.
The first installment came out in late October, and I published the second one the following week. I’m also recording it as a podcast, especially because I got a pretty cool interview. Producing the podcast is where the trouble started.
While recording what I already published, I discovered that the first installment sucked. The story isn’t unsalvageable, but it felt achingly uninspired, mired in a trap that hadn’t caught me in a long time: I forgot to invite you along.
UPDATE: I fixed it:
Regular readers have some trust in me (and most of you who get this read it, which is a blessing!), but they also know that sometimes I ask too much, not getting into the good stuff until I’ve been a little tedious. Object History is one of those big asks (and maybe too big an ask as is).
You see, I know there’s a pretty cool payoff, but I kept it secret. I didn’t give the reader (you) any reason to trust that this mechanical pencil narrative was going somewhere fun or interesting.
Sitting down to record last week, I realized there is nothing in the first story’s opening to justify another six or so thousand words about pencils. I'm overhauling it this week and, if I get it right, the repairs should fix the second part all by itself. The rest will follow. In the meantime, there is a cool tangential discovery I would like to share.
I was telling my wife the same story I just told you about reworking the introduction when I was thunderstruck by the realization that one of my oldest pieces of knowledge was flat-dead wrong.
The company that would eventually become Dixon-Ticonderoga made a fortune selling pencils during the Civil War. Prior to that, Dixon was an industrial supplies company that did pencils on the side. Dixon pencils are one reason the Civil War is so well documented. They allowed common soldiers to write letters home and keep diaries, which had been difficult before pencils.
The regular soldiery didn’t have access to the pen, ink, and blotter that a general might have in his tent. Writing home was the purview of higher officers, more because of the gear it took than because of literacy. We have all those great Ken Burns style “My Dearest Martha” letters because the men sitting alone in the dark could use Dixon pencils to scratch out their personal observations in the field.
This history isn’t particularly relevant to a story about mechanical pencils, so I left it out of the “main” story, except to say that, even though I’ve begun collecting mechanical pencils, I believe they’re inferior for writers. Those thin lead inserts can’t take the same pressure as a wood pencil, with its thick graphite center. Those three words, as I told this story to Kelly, closed a circuit I didn’t know was open.
“Do you know if they ever used lead in pencils?” I asked her.
“Sure,” she said, “I think people got sick from licking them or something, right?”
It wasn’t meant to be a trick question, but her answer made what I said next come off pointed and a little prosecutorial.
“Did you read that somewhere or is that something you just know?” It was really a question for both of us, although I thought I already had my answer.
Thick Graphite Center
Learning that pencils were made of lead was foundational in grammar school. It might be one of our earliest “wisdom of the crowd” experiences. In the first or second grade, there was always some wildcard who drew all over themselves, prompting the teacher to warn the entire class against “lead poisoning.”
As a young kid, I remember fretting over self-inflicted pencil stabs, watching the place where I pricked myself with a well-sharpened pencil for the telltale spidery signs of infection and certain death. For the first few years of school, pencil injuries were a genuine concern.
Eventually, (maybe by the fifth grade) we learned they don’t use lead in pencils anymore, they use graphite. This is only true if you stretch the definition of “anymore.” The fact is, there’s never been such a thing as a lead pencil.
Dixon owned one of the largest graphite mines in the world and produced crucibles and other graphite-forward products, only shifting to pencils to meet Civil War demand.
Since its graphite pencils attained near ubiquity before the last soldier’s letter arrived home, it’s hard imagining someone else breaking into the market with lead. Also, even if lead had been a viable pencil filler before the war, companies making lead products at the time made bullets (and cannonballs, I guess).
I felt everything click. There’s no experience like the untethered moment when a piece of fundamental (but false) knowledge falls away. In that weightless space, you realize how precarious all knowledge is, but seeing the new facts describe the world better than the old ones has a grounding effect. You’re reminded that learning is trading misperception for (hopefully) better perception.
One of the hardest things for people to do is to relinquish an old, reliable “fact” to make room for something newer. It’s easier than ever to forget we’re not out here collecting facts to support our former beliefs, or maybe it’s best to say we oughtn’t be out here collecting facts to fit our beliefs.
The initial story flirted with how there can be any joy in possession, why, and how the “having” of a thing makes a person happy. Whether it’s pencils or facts or Hummel figurines, appreciation feels more important than possession.
Or, it is to me at least.
According to Kelly’s brief internet research, Roman styluses sparked the “lead pencil” notion. It wouldn’t shock me if it wasn’t news to you that Americans never used lead pencils. This feels like a revisionist fact I’m late to the party on. It also wouldn’t shock me if you were as stupefied by that information as I was. Saying pencils “used to” have lead is akin to saying Christians “used to” get fed to the lions.
I rarely fish for comments, but I’d love to know whether you thought pencils used to have lead in them. If you don’t want to comment publicly, you can respond to this email, but I think it would be fun to hear any lead pencil stories you want to share.
Keep the Faith,
Tony
Post Script
I was on a business trip to Houston last week. On the way out I sat next to a Nigerian woman who asked me for a ride. I might tell it as a podcast. Look for more quick-hit audio in the future (the Object History will be on its own feed).
I’ve also reanimated the “Destination Delmarva” Instagram, if you’re running out of people to follow on that platform.
Each week for the Day Drinking on Delmarva podcast I look up a 100-year-old news story about Delmarva to share. Sometimes we get to it, sometimes we don’t. In any case, I’ve decided to start sharing the stuff I find on there. Above is the 1924 debut of a “new” football helmet at Princeton.
As always, here’s my latest funeral news show. I’m going to be more active on LinkedIn with sharing the funeral stories I write, so if that’s your bag you can find me here.
Lastly, I’ve been doing my “Best Sentence, So Far” schtick on my YouTube channel as well, if YouTube is your thing, you can find me here.