George Safford Parker was born November 1st 1863 in Shullsburg, Wisconsin, the seventh of eight children. He grew up in a farming community in Iowa, where his only schooling was in the winter months after the harvest season. A bright student, Parker managed to gain a place in the Valentine School of Telegraphy in Janesville, Wisconsin, where he eventually became a teacher of telegraphy.
During his time at the Valentine School, Parker supplemented his income selling John Holland pens to his students, repairing any that leaked or had other problems. He quickly realized that improvements were needed to make fountain pens more reliable and he set about designing one that would not leak into the pocket of the wearer. George S. Parker believed that if he "made a better pen, people would buy it." And so he did. In 1889 he obtained his first patent for a fountain pen.
Teaming up with a local insurance salesman, W. F. Palmer, the Parker Pen Company was formed in Janesville in 1892.
Striving to make the unleakable pen, Parker came up with the design for the Lucky Curve ink feed, a curved ink feed that was designed to drain the ink back into the reservoir by capillary attraction when the pen was upright. A truly revolutionary idea, which Parker patented in 1894. With his new design, Parker had a winner and the unleakable pen was born. For the next 25 years or so, this was the mainstay of the Parker Pen Company's business.
On December 10th, 1898 a George S. Parker Jointless Fountain Pen was used to sign the Treaty of Paris ending the Spanish American War between the United States and Spain.
During the First World War Parker was awarded a contract by the U.S. Government for the Trench Pen, a pen that soldiers could use on the battlefield by inserting a black pigment pellet into the cap and mixing it with water to make ink. By 1918 the Parker Pen Company annual sales exceeded one million dollars.
After the War, George Parker went on an expansion program, building a new factory and administrative office building in Janesville and touring around the world opening distributorships in several countries.
At this time pens were made out of black hard (vulcanized) rubber. In 1921 Parker brought out an orange-red hard rubber Duofold. At twice the price of the equivalent black pen, $7, it was quite a gamble, but it paid off and over the next four years Parker Pen Company sales quadrupled.
Still on an expansion program, in 1923 the Company opened its first manufacturing plant outside of the U.S. in Canada and a year later opened a subsidiary in England.
By the mid 1920s plastics became all the rage, with every pen company competing to show their product was the best. In September 1926 Parker Pen Company advertised their Permanite Duofold range, with non-breakable barrels when dropped 3000 feet.
