POTW: Eberhard Faber Pencil Company collection

[Boxing and Labeling Department], circa 1915, V1988.35.8; Eberhard Faber Pencil Company collection, ARC.028; Brooklyn Historical Society.

The photo of the week depicts female workers around 1915 in the boxing and labeling department of the Eberhard Faber Pencil Company in the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn. The company began as a U.S. subsidiary branch of A.W. Faber Company in 1849 and is the oldest pencil manufacturing company in the United States. The original office was located at 133 William Street in Manhattan. In 1861, the company opened its first U.S. pencil factory on East 42^nd Street, what is now the United Nations. A fire destroyed the factory in 1872, prompting a move to the Greenpoint location (pictured above)—a pattern of movement from Manhattan to Brooklyn that many companies replicated in the late nineteenth century.

The Greenpoint factory included two square city blocks bounded by Greenpoint Avenue, West Street, Java Street, and Franklin Street. The factory remained in Greenpoint until 1956, when operations were moved to Wilkes-Barre, PA. This move follows national trends at the time when many New York City-based companies sought more space and cheaper labor outside of the urban center. In 1987, the company was sold to A. W. Faber-Castell. The original factory building still exists and is now a residential building.

This photograph is from the Eberhard Faber Pencil Company collection. This collection encompasses materials related to the Eberhard Faber Pencil Company, including product catalogues, promotional materials, photographs, and publications. Particularly noteworthy are the black-and-white photographic prints that document the Greenpoint factory, including interior photographs of workers on the job. To see more photographs from this collection, check out this gallery.

Interested in seeing more photos from BHS’s collection? Visit our online image gallery, which includes a selection of our images. Interested in seeing even more historic Brooklyn images? Visit our Brooklyn Visual Heritage website here. To search BHS’s entire collection of images, archives, maps, and special collections visit BHS’s Othmer Library Wed-Sat, 1:00-5:00 p.m. library@brooklynhistory.org