April 15 - Rubber Eraser Day

Posted on April 15, 2022

Key Points

This is an update of my post published on April 15, 2011:

Joseph Priestly, the English guy who is credited with the discovery of oxygen, noted in 1770 that Europeans were using little cubes of rubber (brought from Brazil) to rub out black lead pencil. Some people credit Priestly with the invention of rubber erasers because he recorded their use.

Others credit another Englishman: There is a story that an engineer named Edward Naime created the first eraser in 1770. At the time, people used large “crumbs” of bread to wipe out mistakes. Naime accidentally picked up a piece of rubber instead of his lump of bread—and discovered that rubber worked better. He went on to sell rubber erasers to others.

Unfortunately, like the bread, rubber rots. In 1839, American Charles Goodyear discovered a way to “cure” rubber, making it a lasting and usable material. More than a decade later, in 1858, American Hyman Lipman patented the pencil with a rubber eraser at the end.

These days, erasers are made from synthetic rubber, vinyl, plastic, or gum materials. I used to use balls of dried rubber cement as erasers.

Some anonymous quotes:

“To err is human; an eraser is divine!”

“It’s okay to make mistakes! If nobody ever made mistakes, pencils wouldn’t have erasers!”

“I am the author of my life. Unfortunately, I’m writing in pen, and I can’t erase my mistakes.”

Celebrate!

Celebrate today by buying a fresh new rubber eraser!

Try making “eraser art.” Use the side of your pencil to rub a layer of graphite over a small section of paper. Then draw a design onto that section with your eraser. Repeat as often as needed to create the design in the size you want.