The Free-Trade Bugaboo, 1880s, by Charles Jay Taylor, Courtesy of Georgia State University Library

Not that any tariff rates make any sense: the tariff on a patriotic commodity like steel rides at around 1 or 2%, while foreign-seeming soybean oil gets 18 to 45%. Premium cuts of meat are barely guarded at 4% but cheap meat gets a 10 to 20% tariff slapped on. Don’t mess with our crappy meat or our crappy scissors!

But all those are just numbers, where does the flag waving over scissors come in? Check out this 1909 letter to congress where twelve US shear manufacturers argued “That with an increase in duty, as will be proposed, a new industry will be created in this country.” Ah, to live in a place with a thriving scissor and shear manufactury. That’s a flag I could salute proudly! The letter goes on to explain why exactly US scissor makers need protection. (This is where you say something about how the more things change the more they stay the same because the complaint was about cheap foreign labor, not Chinese this time but German.)

H. Cromwell Criterion, Courtesy of Great Planes Trading

“While the actual wage of a German mechanic is apparently two-thirds of that paid in this country, the difference is really greater. In Germany the work is done entirely by contract and not in a factory. The workman takes to his home the rough material and with the aid of the family the product is finished.”

It’s not cheap labor because the Germans were living in padlocked dorms and sleeping in shifts to get the opportunity to engage in sweatshop labor. The men were bringing work home! To the modern ear, this set-up doesn’t sound diabolical. It sounds idyllic. You can’t watch an hour of television these days without seeing advertisement after advertisement about work-at-home schemes and how marvelous they would make your life.

Our Flags - Beat Germany - Support Every Flag that Opposes Prussianism, ca. 1917-1918, Courtesy of Ohio History Central

Not to mention that the German man who brought work home was teaching his children (at least his sons) a trade. The letter correctly points out that this age-old method of manufacturing harnesses the economic efficiency of the family to the cart. But it’s not presented as the beautiful continuity of a tradition of familial apprenticeship that could be traced back for centuries… it’s a sneaky cheat. “Healthy, honest Americans are leaving their homes to a factory and making scissors. These Germans are taking scissor blanks home and putting their children to work like godless communists!”

In case you’re thinking that this was part of the anti-German sentiment being drummed up by francophiles in the lead-up to WWI, it wasn’t. It’s just good old fashioned American xenophobia.. The year 1909 was a bit too early for the anti-German stuff and besides, in the very next letter the French were scapegoated. Following the shear maker’s complaint is a similar plea for protection from Tool Steel makers.

“There are any number of manufacturing concerns in this country who will bear witness to the fact that certain wily Frenchmen have invaded the country a few years ago and sold any amount of a supposedly miraculous tool steel [that] was almost worthless….This case is an extreme illustration of the credulity of some American tool steel buyers and their curious confidence in anything manufactured on the other side of the ocean.”

The idea of protectionism is that a tariff (or a subsidy, which amounts to the same thing, really) is to give a delicate new industry the space to take root and and become strong. Once strong, the tariff could be dropped, or so the fairy tale goes. Rarely does it work this way. Usually, consumers end up paying more than they need to and companies respond to the free kick in the shin to their foreign competition with complacency, ultimately becoming even less competitive than they were before.

Often the call for protection takes on a patriotic tone, critical of the people who are threatening our native industry. In the case of our cousins across the pond, whether the complaint has centered on communistic German family-men, wily Frenchmen or government subsidies for home industries, decades of similar pitches from protectionists on the American side have not eroded our “curious confidence” in European goods. That confidence remains quite strong in this country, mostly for good reason.

The idea of buying a pair of shears that was finished in a man’s home with his children playing and learning at his feet gives me a warm feeling I can’t quite give up even though that possibility is long gone.

Adrian Colesberry is also the author of “How to Make Love to Adrian Colesberry,” published by Gotham Books.

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No. 556, 1956, Table Lamp, height 48 cm

Though celebrated during his lifetime, Sarfatti’s contribution to lighting has gone surprisingly unexamined. Only one monograph of his work, an exhibition catalog published by Galerie Christine Diegoni and edited by Frédéric Leibovitz, exists, and it’s easier to find him mentioned in showroom press releases than in histories of mid-century Italian design.

But as a 2003 article by Gilles de Bure subtly suggested, this may have something to do with Sarfatti’s own aversion to art with a capital “A.” He saw himself as technician and craftsman, interested in “innovating rather than prettifying.”

Gino Sarfatti, 1912 - 1984

Born in Venice in 1912, Sarfatti belonged to a storied family that included feminist critic Margherita Sarfatti, notorious for being Mussolini’s mistress and an enemy of fascism. He began studying aeronaval engineering at the University of Genoa, but did not finish due to family financial problems. Instead, he took a sales job at a Milan glass company, a twist of fate that undoubtedly informed his ultimate career path. Sarfatti designed his first light fixture in 1938 and founded a small workshop called Arteluce in 1939. Though he would flee to Switzerland during the Second World War, he would rebuild the workshop when he returned to Milan in 1945.

No. 213/sp, 1966, Wall Lamp

Arteluce began experimenting with Plexiglas as early as 1951, and pioneered the of use halogen in light fixtures in 1971. It won the Compasso D’oro Sarfatti for Table Lamp Model 559 in 1954, and again in 1955 for Model 1055. It also became a regular haunt for some of Italy’s most exciting young designers, among them Franco Albini, Gianfranco Frattini, Vittoriano Vigano and Marco Zanusso. But award-winning and connectedness aside, it was Sarfatti’s almost clinical preoccupation with the working of bulbs, cords, and stands that set him apart.

No. 2102, Circa 1957, Ceiling Lamp

Certainly, an interest in bare-bones technology wasn’t unique among mid-century designers, but most aimed to create objects that were a sum of their parts. Sarfatti fixated on the parts. In Floor Lamp 1063, a model made in 1954 and now included in the Museum of Modern Art’s collection, a vertical fluorescent tube is the light source, and a transformer on the floor provides both energy and balance. Each element feels wholly autonomous.

Twelve years later, Sarfatti made Lamp Model 600P, a metal and leather table fixture that presents the light bulb as if it were a baseball peeking out of a strangely elegant mitt. In 1971, just two years before Sarfatti sold Arteluce to the lighting company Flos, there was Model 608, a pair of wall sconces that look like little red bulb-bearing dishes, the cords hang down like tails. Like all of Sarfatti’s most engaging work, they’re unpretentiously elegant products of fine-tuned curiosity. And, of course, they’re all about the bulb.

No. 606, 1971, Table Lamp

FURTHER READING:
Light Emitting Wallpaper to Replace Lightbulbs? Business Pundit
Incandescent Bulbs Return to the Cutting Edge, The New York Times

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John F. Kennedy, April 1961, Courtesy of Life Magazine

Yeah, I kept it. It was a nice pen. A really nice pen. I’d always thought that fancy writing instruments were gifts for “dads and grads,” or fat bankers. For weeks, though, I was like a 20-year-old with his first cigar, inviting silent judgment from fellow scribes for seeming too “elevated”. Still, I whipped it out for in-class essays, pushed away plastic pens to sign credit card slips, and eventually used it to sign a check deposit for an apartment, wanting to give the landlord a sign that, “not to worry, I’m gonna be a serious pay-on-time” kind of kid. I even bought my first suit with the notion that the pen would be promoted from jean jacket to woolen breast pocket, that potential employers would instantly give me twice the pay the last guy was offered.

Parker Fountain Pen Advertising, 1967, Courtesy of Gallery of Graphic Design

Like most young gents my age, I knew at least this much: the fountain pen was a sign of refinement, professionalism, and craftsmanship. It was also a mark of one’s word, which is why all those world figures sign historic contracts and treaties with such a writing instrument. Most of all, it just plain feels good to use and glides across the page like water off a duck’s back. The secret’s all in the nib, the metal tip that is usually made of steel with a gold overlay (to resist corrosion from ink) and a bead of iridium alloy on the end (for durability), and the feed, which delivers just the right amount of ink from a reservoir inside the barrel.  Good pens will have nibs that flex just the right amount to deliver a steady stream of ink down the two tines.

Popular Science Magazine, 1956, Courtesy of Modern Mechanix Blog (Click on Image for Details)

When Lewis Waterman, an insurance salesman plagued by inkblots, introduced the first practical fountain pen in 1884, he had no idea that the fountain pen would eventually become an objet d’art.

His pen allowed air to move ink down a multi-channel feed connected to a reservoir (that was hand-filled with an eyedropper). Though various fountain pens had been around in some form for over a hundred years, Waterman’s version greatly reduced the chance of leakage, and insurance salesmen across the globe joined hands in one unending song of praise.

Letter from A. Klipsch During Civil War, June 15, 1862, Courtesy of Michael Roberts (Click on Image for Details)

Waterman’s success inspired others to capitalize on the new innovation. In 1897, another entrepreneur, Roy Conklin, made the eyedropper obsolete when he introduced the crescent filler, a pen with a rather unsightly metal arch that, when pressed, drew ink into a pliant rubber sac inside the barrel. In the early part of the 20th century, companies like Scheaffer and Parker added major improvements by making the internal filling systems much more user friendly, and ultimately, less messy. Cartridges arrived in 1936, when Waterman’s French subsidiary, JiF Waterman, made the glass cartridge readily available, and eliminated the need to constantly refill.

Lyndon Johnson signs Civil Rights Act with Martin Luther King, Jr. watching, 2 July, 1964

The day that Mont Blanc fell into my hot little hand, I unscrewed the barrel, replaced the empty cartridge with one bought at the campus bookstore, and went on my merry way. It felt pretty damn smart; I was a college kid, after all. And I was taking an important first step towards merging a future writing career with a healthy concern for the environment. According to the EPA, about 1.6 billion disposable pens end up in land fills every year. Don’t know who’s doing the counting, but I’d hate to be the guy who has that job.

FURTHER READING:

Telegraph, “Mont Blanc apologises for Gandi pen”, February 25, 2010.

Times Online, “Mutton dressed as lad: Barack Obama’s presidential pens”, April 9, 2009.

Ambrose Flack, “Theodore Roosevelt and My Green-Gold Fountain Pen”, The New Yorker, May 22, 1948.

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Olivetti Valentine, 1969

Probablemente. Young Adriano’s visit to the Remington Typewriter Co. may have convinced him that productivity was a function of an organizational system and that industry must play a part in creating a more pleasing environment for the people it impacted, from factory worker to end user. Little is known about his visit there, but Adriano came back with a new vision to integrate labor and life outside of the workplace into one experience. It was a simple philosophical premise that had far-reaching consequences, one that the empathetic young man would soon apply to the product development and to the community of thinkers who would help forge the company’s design aesthetic.

Olivetti Advertising, 1973

After taking the reigns of Olivetti, Adriano merged the Italian modernist principles that guided his manufacturing philosophy with humanistic concerns for the modern worker worldwide. Olivetti’s primary goal of harmonizing labor with life led him to found a “Community Movement” and most certainly influenced the design of products used by office workers as well. These products strive to communicate with the public through bold design aesthetics and would transform the seriously technical into the tactile and sensual.

Olivetti Lettera 22, 1950

Olivetti encouraged independent thinking in its designers and hoped it would trickle down to the public as well. Marcello Nizzoli’s creation of the Lettera 22 typewriter (1950) was a compact and portable pup in a world full of elephants, introducing the idea that one wasn’t tethered to the desk all day. It eventually won the Compasso d’Oro prize in 1954 and was chosen by the Illinois Institute of Technology as the best design of the last 100 years.

Olivetti Valentine

It was Ettore Sottsass, however, that ultimately linked Olivetti and the typewriter in the minds of cult followers. The Valentine (1969), which attracted a new design-savvy generation of on-the-go typists, pushed the notion that productivity could be a happy (and even fun) affair. In fact, Sottsass considered the Valentine an “anti-machine machine.” Visionaries such as these, given adequate space to explore, transformed an otherwise mundane office with beautiful tools that invited the worker to be stimulated with color and form.

Olivetti Lettera 36, 1972

Like his American counterpart George Nelson, Olivetti’s goal of breathing life into the office was echoed in advertising campaigns ripe with bold concepts and color which were successful in a constantly evolving marketplace. High concept marked the postwar years, pushing the idea that work could be play, and that it should always be creative. Like Nelson and Herman Miller advertising, Olivetti campaigns portrayed the workplace as a fluid environment, much more inviting to the modern worker than the prewar office, heavy and oppressive.

Olivetti Lettera 22, 1950

Olivetti Lettera 22 Instruction Manual, Courtesy of Puppies and Flowers

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Bronze Book Dart

The tip of the backside is bent upwards, which makes it easy to slide them over a page.

Book Darts come in two variations — phosphor bronze and stainless steel.

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Caran d'Ache Ballpoint Pen

The logo is hidden underneath the metal clip. How subtle.

This retractable pen is good for every day use, without having to deal with the frustration of the often malfunctioning plastic alternative. I wonder how many poorly made pens end up in the trash, long before the ink runs out.

If you’re into color coordinating your notes, they also offer it in red, blue and other colors. The color of the pen indicates which color lead is inside.

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Moore Push-Pins

After coming up with his invention, Moore left the photography business, founded the Moore Push-Pin Company and started selling to local businesses. His smart and simple product was made out of a steel needle with a glass head.

Moore died when only 42 years old, on March 16, 1916 from grippe. He left a wife and two sons, a five and a twelve year old. The company is still selling the best push-pins on the market today.

Unfortunately, Moore doesn’t sell push-pins with a glass head anymore. But they have this really nice looking one made out of aluminum.

The Head of a Moore Push-Pin

Moore’s first success came with an order by the Eastman Kodac Co. for USD 1,000. This encouraged Moore to enter the world market with his pins. Moore advanced his company through advertising heavily in magazines and newspapers. By the time of his death, Moore was selling push-pins in “every civilized country”.

Moore Push-Pin Co. Advertising from 1909

Moore Push-Pin Ads 1909

Moore Advertising from 1921

I left the ad below attached. Monogrammed cigarettes – how awesome is that?

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