Before the Undo Command, There Was the Electric Eraser

Before the Undo Command, There Was the Electric Eraser

I’m fascinated with the early 20th-century zeal for electrifying everyday things. Hand tools, toasters, hot combs—they all obviously benefited from the jolt of electrification. But the eraser? What was so problematic about the humble eraser that it needed electrifying? A number of things, it turned out. According to Hermann Lukowski in his 1935 patent application for an apparatus for erasing, “Hand held rubbers are clumsy and cover a greater ar…