Paper clip
Clip de papel
- Date
- c. 1870-1899 · confidence low
- Place
- United Kingdom (Gem Manufacturing Co.); Waterbury, Connecticut, United States (Middlebrook's machine, 1899)
- Credited to
- Gem Manufacturing Company (United Kingdom, 1870s, unpatented); William Middlebrook (machine for making Gem clips, 1899); Samuel Fay (1867, first wire-clip patent); Johan Vaaler (1901 patent, popular Norwegian attribution)
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Steel wire bent into a double loop that holds sheets together without piercing them. Symbol of the modern bureaucratic office.
The Gem clip was never patented; the myth of Vaaler as its inventor is a Norwegian national legend.
What it led to
- Paper office and the modern filing system
- Object of Norwegian resistance against the occupation (1940)
- Mass-produced office supplies
Built on
- Safety pin1849
- Drawn steel wire
- Typewriter
Made possible
- Office stapler