Vigo County Historical Society

Quill pens were top writing tools until the mid-1800s

"The pen is mightier than the sword."

According to Webster, a pen is an instrument for writing or drawing with ink or a similar fluid on a surface such as paper.

In ancient times reeds that had been slit or frayed were writing instruments. Even today, in the Orient bamboo is used in making pens. Sometimes a wax coating over a tablet was scratched with a pointed tool called a stylus or style. The writer erased by using the blunt end of the instrument to smooth the wax.

History tells us that as early as the seventh century quills were used. A quill is one of the large stiff feathers of a bird’s wing or tail. The quill was plucked from a live bird and the craftsman heated it and shaped it with a pen knife.

Usually craftsmen used goose feathers but the quills of turkeys, crows and swan also were used. Only a select group of feathers are suitable for making good quill pens.

The fine sharpness of the quill nib was useful in decorating the illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages. The end point could be sharpened when needed. Our American framers of the Declaration of Independence signed their names with a quill pen.

The quill pen remained the chief writing tool until the mid-1800s. Even though the Romans and the Europeans of the 18th century made metal pens, the more efficient slip-in nib did not come into common use until the 1830s. Josiah Mason worked to make better steel pen points and initiated industrial production in 1828 in Birmingham, England. Although fountain pens were produced on a commercial scale in the 1880s, I remember using pens as a school child in the 1930s. Our school desks had an ink well. How difficult it was not to make a blotch on our writing exercise paper! Several of the pens pictured, along with the writing box, may be seen in the parlor of the museum.