Wacky World of Rubber: I missed Rubber Eraser Day!

Of course there's a day for everything. Many days on the calendar, in fact, are used to celebrate more than one "milestone."

But I must admit my dismay when I found out that April 15 not only is Tax Day, but also apparently is Rubber Eraser Day. As editor of Rubber & Plastics News I would have thought this prestigious day would have come to my attention sooner than this, particularly since erasers are one of the oldest articles made from rubber.

So when I did come across this information, while looking through Twitter for any pertinent tweets to share or look into, I did a bit of digging. Not too much digging, but enough to find a few things out about this underserved day of commemoration.

At first thought, you might think there is a correlation between April 15 being Tax Day (I actually finished mine early this year) and the need to erase mistakes from your tax forms. But since very few people still fill out paper tax returns, that is not the case at all.

According to a piece I found on the website nonstopcelebrations.com, April 15 is the day for National Rubber Eraser Day because on that date in 1770 Joseph Priestley described using a gum to wipe away pencil markings. Edward Nairne not too long before that had discovered that this rubber could be used for erasing. Prior to that, bread often was used as erasers, but Nairne, according to the web post, inadvertently picked up a piece of rubber instead of bread, and the "gum" was better suited to the task.

It wasn't until Charles Goodyear's discovery of vulcanization in 1839, however, that rubber eraser became common place.

Another web piece, this one from the "all knowing" Wikipedia, said that in 1858 Hymen Lipman of Philadelphia received the first patent for attaching an eraser to the end of pencil. But the patent was later disallowed because it was determined to not be an entirely new product, but simply the joining of two devices that had already been invented.

On Rubber Eraser Day, somebody else shared a 2013 piece from The Atlantic, telling us 10 things we probably didn't know about eraser technology. Among the tidbits from this article was that "rubber" may have gotten its name from erasers, after Priestly remarked how the material—initially referred to as "India Gum"—needed a rubbing action to erase, hence the term rubber. In Britain, the article said, erasers still often are called "rubbers."

Apparently, quite a few people actually were aware that April 15 is to celebrate erasers, given the number of Tweets using the hashtag #RubberEraserDay.

Some of them were for fun, while others used it as a marketing tool. A.C. Moore's official Twitter site sent out the message that it was not a mistake, the giant pink erasers (remember those from school) are just a dollar at its stores.

And pencil firm Ticonderoga sent out a Tweet of its products with the packaging "The

So now that I know the significance of April 15, I'll be ready next year. No computers, just old school pencil and paper. And mistakes on purpose. Just so I can use the eraser!!

Bruce Meyer is editor of Rubber & Plastics News and he sees rubber-related stories nearly everywhere he goes. Follow him on Twitter @bmeyerRPN.