2020 INDIE BOOK AWARD WINNER - A Century of Autopoint by Jonathan Veley

Description

Winner of the 2020 Next Generation Indie Book Awards for Best Overall Design (Non-Fiction), and named Finalist in Writing/Publishing (Non-Fiction).
Jonathan Veley's 10th book is a comprehensive history of Autopoint, one of America's leading manufacturers of pencils, fountain pens and a variety of other products. This comprehensive history begins with Charles Keeran, the inventor of the Eversharp pencil, who founded Autopoint in 1918. With the cooperation researchers Robert Bolin, Jim Stauffer and the cooperation of the Keeran family, this work presents the most complete biography of Keeran's life ever published, along with detailed histories of Realite, Autopoint, Dur-O-Lite, and how their stories weave together with those of other manufacturers, such as Wahl and Rite-Rite.
The book brings together the development of the mechanical pencil history in Chicago with the early development of the American plastics industry, and in particular Bakelite. It provides a complete taxonomy of Autopoint models and their variations, together with the dates they were produced. Also included are sections on Autopoint's rare tab filler pens, ephemera, prototypes, and an appendix reproducing previously unpublished material from Keeran's 1939 lawsuit against The Wahl Company.
Hardbound, 224 pages. ISBN 978-0-9840392-6-8.