What serves in the U.S. military, works for the federal government, and addresses packages at the post office? Give up? A ballpoint pen—specifically, a Skilcraft pen.
Skilcraft’s ubiquitous ballpoint has been writing history for 50 years. But many don’t realize that visually impaired workers assemble them . . . or that the pens still adhere to 16 pages of rigid government requirements.
The pen’s history begins during the Great Depression. Legislation signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt required the U.S. government to buy products made by blind persons. The 1938 law created jobs for Americans who at the time had difficulty finding other types of work. Brooms and mops made by the blind came first. Doormats, cotton swabs, and pillowcases followed. Eventually, the blind work program included cleaning products and office goods.
On April 20, 1968, the government tapped the National Industries for the Blind (NIB) organization to supply pens after another manufacturer made 13 million defective ballpoints. By the following year, NIB was cranking out 70 million pens—all under the brand name Skilcraft.
Today Skilcraft factories manufacture everything from screwdrivers to hospital supplies. But their most well-known product by far is the ballpoint. The U.S. Postal Service alone orders 700,000 pens per year.
Richard Oliver is director of community outreach and government relations at a North Carolina plant that makes Skilcraft pens. “It’s the Coca-Cola of ink pens,” he says. “Everybody recognizes this pen.”
Skilcraft ballpoints are known for some unusual traits. They must be able to write a continuous line one mile long. (Really. Because . . . ?) They must work in temperatures from 40 degrees below zero to 160 degrees above.
According to folklore (some of this can’t be confirmed), a Skilcraft pen can also do the following:
—become a two-inch bomb fuse;
—substitute for a tube in an emergency tracheotomy;
—measure 150 nautical miles on a naval map;
—show the maximum length for fingernails in the military (the metal tip);
—create fewer than 15 “blobs” per 1,000 feet of writing;
—survive (mostly) two applications of chemical bleach (the ink); and
—write upside down.
But the Skilcraft pen is more than a laundry list of bizarre and wonderful qualities. NIB President and CEO Kevin Lynch says, “This humble pen symbolizes . . . the strength of American manufacturing and the limitless capabilities of people who are blind.” That’s a lot of legend in an 80-cent plastic package.
