The History of the Ever Versatile Paper Clip

It’s one of those inventions that we don’t necessarily think about, but its uses are wide and varied. It’s the humble paper clip, the carefully bent wire of metal that holds paper together, so we don’t drop a stack of it on the ground. The paper clip has many other uses it never was intended for, but where did the paper clip come from?

The paper clip hasn’t always been the familiar triple curved design we know today. The first “paper clips” were actually called “letter clips” since they had a spring and a clip. They were used in the 1800s and early 1900s. The first patent for a “paper clip” was made by Samuel B. Fay in 1867, but it wasn’t originally intended to hold papers together but to fasten a ticket to fabric so a pin wouldn’t have to be used. The patent did mention, however, that a paper ticket could be attached to another piece of paper.

In 1899, William Middlebrook received a patent for the paper clip we know today, but the patent wasn’t on the actual paper clip. It was a patent for a “machine for making wire paper clips”. He sold the patent to an office supply manufacturer that same year called Cushman & Denison. They later trademarked the paper clip in 1904 as the “Gem” paper clip, the one people most commonly use today. The “Gem” paper clip had already been in circulation before the trademark and showed up in an advertisement as…