How the No. 2 pencil became an American school supply staple
For generations of Americans, a sharpened No. 2 pencil has represented childhood and coming of age. Still a fixture of back-to-school shopping lists, it outlines a child’s first letters, erases their mistakes and lets them doodle in the margins when they daydream. For decades, sweaty hands clutched the ridged yellow wood on test day. “Bring two sharp No. 2 pencils,” generations of Americans were told, as they prepared to fill in bubbles on the SATs and other standardized tests that might shape their futures. Whether it’s true that Scantron machines could only read No. 2 ...