From New Mind.

As an innovation, the modern paperclip has a peculiar history…

HISTORY OF PAPER
• First created in China during the 1st century AD using expensive cotton and linen, reserving it for permanent writing.
• Trivial or temporary writing was relegated to reusable clay or wax tablets.
• The 19th-century Industrial Revolution introduced wood pulping and mills, making paper cheap and widely available.

FIRST PAPER CLIPS
• Early paper fastening relied on iron pins, which were drastically improved by assembly-line manufacturing.
• Dividing the labor of drawing, straightening, and cutting iron made production 1,000 times more efficient.
• Daily output skyrocketed from barely 30 pins per worker to over 30,000 pins.

WIRE TO CLIPS
• The transition from pins to clips was driven by the 1850s introduction of low-cost, industrially produced steel.
• Advancements in metallurgy and mechanization enabled the mass shaping of steel wire.
• Thousands of patents were issued in the late 19th century for almost every conceivable shape of formed wire.

THE FIRST PAPER CLIPS
• The earliest known paper clip patent in the United States was awarded to Samuel B.
• Early designs, such as the bow-shaped "Ideal" and the two-eyed "Owl" clip, are still in use today.
• These early wire clips were intentionally designed to solve specific challenges of managing paperwork.

GEM PAPER CLIPS
• An 1883 article touted a "Gem Paper-Fastener" by the Gem Manufacturing Company, though no illustrations survive to confirm its shape.
• Despite its immense popularity and clear branding claims, the iconic Gem-style clip design itself remained unpatented.
• An 1899 patent for a paperclip-making machine by William Middlebrook clearly illustrated the machine producing a Gem-style clip.

OTHER CLAIMS
• Johan Vaaler was granted patents in 1901 for a similar design that lacked the Gem clip’s crucial final bend.
• Vaaler became a posthumous national myth, falsely celebrated as the unrecognized Norwegian prodigy who invented the paperclip.
• His actual paper-binding invention looked more like a modern cotter pin than a contemporary paperclip.

ENDURING LEGACY
• The gem-style clip has remained largely unchanged for over 120 years, even appearing on a national stamp in 1999.
• Manufacturers have attempted minor improvements over the years, such as adding ripples for a better grip.
• Its ease of use and ability to secure papers without tangling or damage make it a nearly unimprovable human invention.

SUPPORT NEW MIND ON PATREON
https://www.patreon.com/newmind