And now a page from our "Sunday Morning" Almanac: March 30th, 1858, 156 years ago today . . . the day a Philadelphia inventor made his mark. For that was the day Hyman Lipman patented the first pencil ...

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Philadelphia inventor Hymen L. Lipman rushed heroically to the aid of mistake-prone schoolchildren, draftsmen and artists everywhere when he secured the patent for the pencil with eraser on this day ...

The American Lead Pencil Company began operating in New York City around 1861 and started to manufacture the Venus line of drawing pencils in 1905. By 1939 the firm was advertising itself as the ...