Electric Pen

Edison and his laboratory staff developed the electric pen and press during the summer and fall of 1875. The key feature of this copying system was the electric pen, one of the earliest consumer uses of an electric motor. This motor drove a small needle up and down the shaft of the pen, and as the user wrote, it created a stencil. This stencil was then placed in the press, and a roller was used to squeegee ink through the holes in the stencil, creating a copy of the document. Manufactured between 1877 and 1890 Patented August 15, 1876. The electric pen had a second life in the 1890s when Samuel O'Reilly converted it into the first electric tattoo needle.