Wandom Wednesday

Hymen Lipman is the first person credited with the combination of pencil and eraser. This happened March 30, 1858.

• Lipman's invention took place of about one-third of the pencil.
• To "expose" the eraser, you had to sharpen the rubber end.
• Lipman said being able to sharpen the eraser made it more useful for erasing lines near other lines.
• Before India invented the rubber eraser, people used rolled up pieces of white bread.
• An English engineer, Edward Naime, invented the eraser in 1770.
• Because rubber would rot over time, Charles Goodyear's invention of vulcanization in 1839 made the rubber stay preserved.
• Modern erasers are either made with a vulcanized combination of rubber and pumice, or with pumice and vinyl, which does not need vulcanization.