Last updated: May 3, 2024
Article
50 Nifty Finds #1: A Singular Pen
It’s a familiar sight today to see presidents holding signing ceremonies for popular or significant legislation. President Barack Obama used 22 pens to sign the Affordable Care Act in 2010. President William J. Clinton used 44 to sign the Taxpayer Relief Act in 1997. The record, however, may be President Lyndon B. Johnson, who used an estimated 75 pens to sign the Civil Rights Act of 1964! Signing pens are given as gifts to people who sponsored or worked hard to pass the bill.
How many pens did President Woodrow Wilson use to sign the bill that created the National Park Service (NPS) on August 25, 1916? Just one!
President Wilson used this dip pen (called that because the metal nib is dipped into an inkwell before writing) to sign HR 15522. He signed below the signatures of the speaker of the House of Representatives and vice president of the United States and president of the Senate, simply writing “Approved 25 August, 1916” followed by his signature. He didn’t use his presidential title. The original signed law is in the National Archives.
Known as the Organic Act, the law created the NPS within the Department of the Interior to protect and manage the 35 national parks and monuments that had been created by 1916 as well as those created in the future. Among other things, the law established that the NPS purpose “is to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”
The tradition of multiple signing pens seems to date to Presidents Harry S Truman or Franklin D. Roosevelt, but that doesn’t mean that earlier pens were considered unimportant. The significance of this dip pen for NPS history was recognized immediately. Horace M. Albright sent a telegram to Stephen T. Mather on August 26, 1916, telling him “Park service bill signed nine oclock [sic] last night, have pen used by President in signing for you.”
Albright’s telegram is preserved in the NPS History Collection, along with the Organic Act signing pen and this August 25, 1916, letter on The White House stationary, signed by the secretary to the president. It reads:
“My dear Mr. Mather:
Knowing your interest in the National Park Service, I take pleasure in sending you herewith the pen with which the President to-day, approved H.R. 15522, An Act to establish a National Park Service, and for other purposes.”
At the time, Mather was an assistant to the secretary of the Interior, but in 1917 he was appointed the first director of the NPS. Albright became the first assistant director.
The Organic Act signing pen was kept in the NPS Washington Office for decades after Mather received it. Once the NPS History Collection was established as the bureau history collection on November 6, 1972 the pen was sent there to ensure its preservation. Today it remains the centerpiece of a collection comprised of over 3.5 million items. A singular pen, indeed.
Sources:
The White House. (2010, March 24). “All the President’s Pens.” Accessed October 2, 2022, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZSoUBNz13QThe White House. (2015, July 2). “This Day in History: President Lyndon B. Johnson Signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.” Accessed October 2, 2022, at https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2015/07/02/day-history-president-lyndon-b-johnson-signed-civil-rights-act-1964#:~:text=President%20Johnson%20signed%20the%20Civil,Martin%20Luther%20King%20Jr.