ME 182 PROJECT 2-B

The growing uses of paper in the 19th century created a demand for an efficient paper fastener.

A McGill stapler

In 1866, George McGill received U.S. patent 56,587 for a small, bendable brass paper fastener that was a precursor to the modern staple. In 1867, he received U.S. patent 67,665 for a press to insert the fastener into paper. He showed his invention at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and continued to work on these and other various paper fasteners throughout the 1880s. In 1868 an English patent for a stapler was awarded to C. H. Gould, and in the U.S, Albert Kletzker of St. Louis, MO also patented a device.

The first published use of the word "stapler" to indicate a machine for fastening papers with a thin metal wire was in an advertisement in the American Munsey's Magazine in 1901.[4]

In the early 1900s, several devices were developed and patented that punched and folded papers to attach them to each other without a metallic clip. The Clipless Stand Machine (made in North Berwick) sold from 1909 into the 1920s. It cut a tongue in the paper that it folded back and tucked in. Bump's New Model Paper Fastener used a similar cutting and weaving technology.