May 29 - National Paperclip Day

Happy National Paperclip Day! On May 29 each year, today celebrates a small but unusually useful invention. Yes, even the paperclip has its own day of honor.  

  

The day celebrates the well-known piece of curved wire that keeps our papers together and helps us stay organized. 

  

While many may have claimed earlier invention of the paperclip, according to the Early Office Museum, Samuel B. Fay received the first patent for a “bent wire paper clip” in the United States in 1867. 

The original intention of Fay’s clip was to attach tickets to fabric. However, U.S. patent 64,088 recognized that it could also be used to attach papers together. 

Prior to 1899, as many as fifty others received patents for similar designs. For example, one other notable name receiving a patent for his paperclip design in the United States. This was regarding Erlman J. Wright in 1877. At that time, he advertised his clip for use in fastening newspapers. 

The Gem paperclip, which was most likely in production in Britain in the early 1870s by The Gem Manufacturing Company, was never patented. It is the most common type of wire paper clip and is still in use today.   

It was introduced to the United States around 1892 and in 1904, Cushman & Denison registered a trademark for the “Gem” name in connection with paper clips. Paperclips are still sometimes called Gem clips. 

Today, paperclips come in various sizes, shapes, and colors and can make your paperwork look more fun and lively.

Paperclips are not just for holding papers together. There are many other things that you can do with them! 

• • Replace a zipper tab

  • Unclog a spray bottle 

• • Unclog a single-serve coffee maker 

• • Hem holder 

• • Emergency hooks for broken necklaces 

The Paper Clip Project 

During World War II this small, universal office supply provided a visual method of protest at a time when any outward signs of objection could be dangerous, even in familiar company. 

Early in the war, Norwegians were particularly persistent in their development of symbols. The paper clip represented “sticking together” for a time until the Nazis caught on and banned the wearing of paper clips. 

According to a March 5, 1941, Provo, Utah newspaper article (The Daily Herald), the Norwegians switched to new symbols as quickly as the bans could be issued. 

In 1998, a group of middle school students led by language arts teacher Sandra Roberts and associate principal David Smith began a project through a Holocaust education class.  

In Tennessee, the voluntary after-school class, Whitwell Middle School principal Linda Hooper’s idea, would be the foundation for developing tolerance and diversity. 

Inspired by the story of the protesting Norwegians and their paper clips, the students began to collect six million paper clips – one paper clip representing one Jew who perished during the Holocaust! 

Adults today still wrestle with how the Holocaust could even happen. Imagine middle-school students trying to understand the magnitude of such an event on humanity. 

The Paper Clip Project gained international attention and by 2001 the students collected more than thirty million paper clips! 

The school dedicated a Children’s Holocaust Memorial which displays an authentic German railcar filled with a portion of the paper clips. 

For more information on this inspiring story, the book, and film that followed visit the website below: 

https://www.oneclipatatime.org 

HOW TO OBSERVE 

How many paperclips do you use in a day? Share your favorite paperclip tips and ideas using #NationalPaperclipDay to post on social media. 

Are you looking for more useful paperclip tips? Check out these 17 Fun and Helpful Ways to Use Paperclips from National Day Calendar® by visiting the website below:

https://nationaldaycalendar.com/17-fun-and-helpful-ways-to-use-a-paperclip/ 

HISTORY 

National Day Calendar® continues researching the origins of this paper fastener celebration. While you’re waiting, check out these other uniting celebrations: 

• • Safety Pin Day 

• • Zipper Day 

• • Button Day 

#NationalPaperClipDay 

#EarlyOfficeMuseum 

@StaplesStores 

@OfficeDepot 

@One.Clip.at.a.Time 

@timesfreepress 

@whitwellmiddleschool 

@TheClippy 

@nichecinema

May 29 - Harry Smith

Happy Birthday, Harry Smith! Born today in 1923 as Harry Everett Smith, this American ethnographer, visual artist and experimental filmmaker was also a record collector, bohemian, mystic, and largely self-taught student of anthropology. 

  

Smith was an important figure in the Beat Generation scene in New York City, New York. 

His activities, such as his use of mind-altering substances and interest in esoteric spirituality, anticipated aspects of the Hippie movement.  

  

Besides his films, he is most notable for editing, producing and directing his one-hour 1962 American black and white avant-garde cutout animation/experimental film 'Heaven and Earth Magic'. 

The film is also called 'Number 12', 'The Magic Feature' or 'Heaven and Earth Magic Feature'. It is a sequence of surreal cut-out animation imagery, largely without a discernible narrative.  

  

According to Smith: "The first part depicts the heroine's toothache consequent to the loss of a very valuable watermelon, her dentistry and transportation to heaven. 

Next follows an elaborate exposition of the heavenly land, in terms of Israel, Montreal and the second part depicts the return to Earth from being eaten by Max Müller on the day Edward the Seventh dedicated the Great Sewer of London". 

  

Originally released in 1957, 'Heaven and Earth Magic' was re-edited several times and the final version was released in 1962. 

The film primarily uses cut-out-animated photographs. It is sometimes screened at one-time cinema events, often with some kind of live music instead of the film's soundtrack (which consists solely of sound effects). 

  

Fred Camper from Chicago Reader praised the film's artistic style, calling it "a mysterious world of alchemical transformations in which objects suggest a multitude of possibilities."  

  

Time Out Magazine offered the film similar praise, comparing it to the works of German painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet Max Ernst and French illusionist and film director Georges Méliès ('A Trip to the Moon'). 

  

Smith is also widely known for his influential 1952 six-album compilation Anthology of American Folk Music. These were drawn from his extensive collection of out-of-print commercial 78 rpm recordings. 

  

Throughout his life, Smith was an inveterate collector. In addition to records, artifacts he collected included string figures, paper airplanes, Seminole textiles, and Ukrainian Easter eggs (pysankas). 

  

Smith is a well-known figure in several fields. People who know him as a filmmaker often do not know of his 1952 Anthology of American Folk Music, while folk music enthusiasts often do not know he was "the greatest living magician" according to Kenneth Anger ('Scorpio Rising'). 

  

Smith passed of cardiac arrest while singing in Italian poet, writer, photographer, essayist and publisher Paola Igliori's arms. This occurred in Room 328 at the Hotel Chelsea in New York City, New York on November 27, 1991. Smith was 68.  

  

Smith's ashes are in the care of his wife, Rose "Rosebud" Feliu-Pettet. She was a muse of the Beats and avant-garde, a fixture of downtown Bohemia, and a gifted memoirist. 

  

Smith had been active from 1939–1987. 

  

#borntodirect 

#borntoanimate 

@experimental.cinema 

@ubuweb 

@FilmMakersCoop 

@HistoryLink.Social

@timeoutneyork 

@Chicago_Reader 

@SanDiegoTroubadour 

@TheMiamiRail