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 first, some background, as Charles Goodyear had to discover the secret to vulcanization. This is the process of “curing” the rubber so that it can be molded as needed. Before Mr. Goodyear’s discovery, rubber — in its natural state — was not very practical to work with.It is sticky and cannot stay set in any particular shape. But with vulcanization, rubber, once cooled, would stay in the shape of its mold.
Yet unfortunately Mr. Goodyear never benefited financially from his invention, though he was publicly recognized by the Emperor of France, Napoleon himself, and prestigiously decorated with many honors. His invention, however, would go on to find many applications that were to soon change the world. One of these was dentures. Rubber was an excellent 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, one of whom had a curious nephew that realized the potential of rubber and eventually wound up manufacturing rubber stamps for the U.S. Postal Service. The nephew, a certain Mr. James Woodruff, is often credited with the invention of the rubber stamp we know today. But there are, actually, many different versions for how rubber stamps came to be, depending on exactly what a rubber stamp is, 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 marking devices which we today would most immediately recognize as being a rubber stamp.
Another very popular and widely acknowledged account for 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,” in which he claimed to have been inspired during work as a foreman at a wooden pump manufacturing facility. According to Mr. Witherell, there was a problem one day involving the paint that was used to mark the pumps. The paint would run and create obscuring blotches over necessary information. Mr. Witherell hit on the idea of creating stencils out of some thin sheets of rubber packing laying around. But as he made the stencil, he decided to simply create thick letters out of the rubber, then glue them to a backing of wood, by which repeated impressions of the necessary marks could be made.
The account thought most unlikely concerns a Mr. Henry C. Leland, who was actually championed during his time by none other than the “Stamp Trade News,” published by a manufacturer of rubber stamps.But no mater its actual origins, there can be no doubt that the rubber stamp itself has left quite an impression on all our lives.