The Invention Of The Rubber Stamp

Rubber Stamps have an interesting history for those who don’t know that they might have been inspired by dentures. Yes, it’s true: dental dentures!  But now, some background, as Charles Goodyear had to discover the secret to vulcanization first.  This is the process of “curing” the rubber so it can be molded as desired.  Before Mr. Goodyear’s invention of the vulcanization process, rubber — in its natural state — was practically impossible to work with.It is sticky and cannot stay set in a particular shape.  But with vulcanization, rubber, once cooled, would stay in the shape of its mold.

Yet poor Mr. Goodyear did not benefit financially from his invention, though he was publicly honored by the Emperor of France, Napoleon himself, and recognized with many prestigious decorations.  His invention, however, went on to find many applications that were to soon change the world.  One of these was dentures.    Rubber was determined to be a great replacement material for the dentures of the day, which were often made of metal or even wood.Dentists had long been making their own dentures, and one of these many dentists had a nephew who realized the potential of rubber and eventually wound up manufacturing rubber stamps for the U.S. Postal Service.  The nephew was a Mr. James Woodruff, is often credited with having came up with the quality rubber stamp we know today.  But there exists, actually, many different stories about the invention of rubber stamps, depending on exactly how a rubber stamp is defined, with one even stretching all the way back to the ancient Mayans!  This version just presented is among the most widely accepted accounts for the stamping devices which we today would most immediately recognize as being a rubber stamp.

Another very popular and widely acknowledged version of the invention the rubber stamp involves a Mr. L.F. Witherell, who went so far as to compose a document titled “How I Came to Discover the Rubber Stamp” wherein he claimed to have been inspired during work as a foreman at a wooden pump making facility.  According to Mr. Witherell, there was a problem one day concerning the paint that was used to mark the pumps.    The paint would run and create blotches obscuring necessary information.  Mr. Witherell stumbled on the idea of creating stencils out of some thin sheets of rubber packing laying around.  But while making the stencil, he thought further and decided to simply create thick letters out of the rubber, then glue them to a backing of wood, by which he could make repeated impressions of the necessary marks.

The account considered least plausible concerns a Mr. Henry C. Leland, who was even championed at the time by none other than the “Stamp Trade News,” published by a manufacturer of rubber stamps.But no mater its origins, there is no doubt that the rubber stamp itself has left quite an enduring impression on all our lives.