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In 1886, Carl Benz patented a vehicle that ran on a gas-powered engine. In 1888, George Eastman created a consumer-friendly camera called the Kodak. A few years earlier, in 1884, Lewis Waterman revolutionized human communication when he patented the design for a fountain pen.
The internally inked pen provided a quiet revolution in technology. Previously, handwriting technology had not changed significantly over thousands of years. Ancient Egyptians used reed writing tools that prefigured feather quill pens and, eventually, metal nibs.
âFountain pens were available before 1880, but they didnât work. The story of how Waterman invented the fountain pen is [that] he was an insurance salesman, and he was using the fountain pen of the day for every contract, note, and to-do list he wrote every day. The clencher? When a big customer tried to sign their name, the pen blotted ink all over the page, rendering the contract meaningless,â says Neal Frank, who owns Santa Fe Pens (