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This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
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| Formerly |
|
|---|---|
| Type | Private (1924–73) Subsidiary (1973–) |
| Industry | Tobacco Stationery (former) |
| Founded | 1924 in Atlanta, GA, U.S. |
| Founder | M.A. Ferst |
| Fate | Acquired by Tokai-Seiki in 1984, then became a brand after other takeovers |
| Headquarters | , U.S. |
Area served | North America |
| Key people |
|
| Products |
|
| Owner | Calico Brands (2005) |
Number of employees | ~300 |
| Parent |
|
| Subsidiaries | Anja Engineering Corp. (1959–present) |
| Website | calicobrands.com/scripto |
Scripto is an American brand currently owned by Calico Brands. The original manufacturing company was founded in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1923 by Monie A. Ferst. At one time the largest producer of writing instruments in the world, now Calico Brands markets butane lighters under the Scripto brand.
The company was originally known as the M.A. Ferst Company until changing its name to Scripto, Latin for "I write", in 1924.[1] Ferst sold mechanical pencils, pens, and pencils as well as their refillables. Ferst increased his sales ability by adding advertising (such as customer names) and commemorative memorabilia to his product line. In 1939, the company produced bat shaped mechanical pencils to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of baseball.[2]
In 1931, the company built a manufacturing plant on Houston Street in Atlanta.[3]
During World War II Scripto became part of the war effort. At first, the company polished 75mm brass cannon shells. It then received a contract to manufacture ammunition pieces worth $1,094,000. This contract required the company to build a new factory and hire at least 250 to 300 new employees.[4]
In 1947, the company hired James V. Carmichael as its president. Under Carmichael, the company became an international business and was the largest producer of writing instruments in the world. He would remain president until 1964 and stayed on the board of directors for several years later.[5] During this time the company would go on to have production centers in Australia, Canada, England, and Southern Rhodesia.[6]
In 1955, the company began selling refillable lighters.[1] Its first lighter model was called the Vu-Lighter. The Vu-Lighter was identical to the Ritepoint lighter and was rumored to be made in the same factory. The only difference was the name on the bottom. The second model was an innovation with an external pump button on the side of the tank.
Two years later the company acquired the Anja Engineering Corporation, a California company which also produced writing instruments and printed material.[7][8][9] By this time, the company had expanded its facilities between Houston and Irwin Streets and built office and research facilities on Boulevard Street.[3]
Beginning in 1963, the International Chemical Workers Union (ICWU) organized Scripto's workers into the union and the National Labor Relations Board recognized their representation on June 9, 1964.[10] At the time Scripto had 950 employees, of which 836 were production or maintenance workers. 633 of the production and maintenance workers were black women.[3] Most of these workers were making $400 per year below the federal poverty limit.[10]
The ICWU called for a strike on November 27, 1964 claiming that Scripto's offer for a raise was discriminatory. The company had offered a four percent raise to skilled staff and a two percent raise to production and maintenance staff. At the time, there were six black workers in skilled staff positions and the union claimed that the company wouldn't promote blacks to skilled positions. On November 30, Martin Luther King Jr. and C.T. Vivian informed the company that the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) supported the strikers and threatened to lead a boycott of the company's products. The company stated that the proposal was economic and not racially motivated.[3][1]
In December, Carmichael negotiated with the union while King spent two days with the strikers.[1] Vivian worked to form an alliance of the union and civil rights groups that he thought would help the strikers reach their demands. During this time the strike began to take on the feel of a civil rights protest.[10] King walked the picket line with them on December 19 and addressed a rally of 250 strikers at Ebenezer Baptist Church on the 20th stating the SCLC was prepared to move forward with a boycott.[3] On the 24th, the company and union reached their first agreement with the union dropping its boycott and the company paying the strikers their annual Christmas bonuses.[10]
On January 9, 1965, Scripto and the ICWU announced a settlement.[3] All employees would receive four cent an hour raised each year for the next three years. The company also agreed to re-hire 155 strikers and keep on their replacement workers. Although racial tensions eased at the plant some Atlanta leaders who had been somewhat sympathetic to King before the strike became less so after the boycott threats.[10]
Later in 1965, Carl Singer was brought on as president of the company to oversee a reorganization and a change in direction.[11]
In 1973, Scripto stopped being an independent entity when it was acquired by the British firm Wilkinson Sword which was trying to diversify its interests.[12] The next year, the company began a partnership with the Japanese firm of Tokai-Seiki to sell disposable lighters.[1] In December 1977, the company moved its plant from Atlanta to Gwinnett County, Georgia.[3] By 1978, the company was a subsidiary of Allegheny International, Inc. and K. Douglas Martin was its president.[13]
In 1984, Scripto was acquired by Tokai-Seiki which had become the Tokai Corporation.[1] In 1986 the company moved its headquarters to Rancho Cucamonga, California.[14] At the same time, the company's Anja subsidiary built a new facility in Rancho Cucamonga and moved all of its staff there from Monrovia, California. Anja's facility was the first major writing production facility to be built in the United States in twenty years and would produce Scripto pens.[8]
The company's name was changed to Scripto-Tokai in 1988 and its headquarters were moved to Fontana, California.[14] Most of its production facilities were moved to Tijuana, Mexico, in 1989.[1][7] The plant in Gwinnett County closed in 1994.[10] Sometime after this the company stopped producing writing instruments and focused on lighters.[1]
In 2005, the Scripto brand, along with the sales, marketing and distribution of products, was sold to Calico Brands, a Japanese company primarily producing and selling disposable cigarette lighters.[15] In 2006, the company's name was again changed, this time to Scripto, USA.[1]
As of 2025, Scripto is a brand of the Calico brands of Tokai World and produces only lighters. The company is based in Ontario, California.[16]
In 1955, Scripto was the first to introduce what it called Fluidlead. This was a pencil that wrote like a pen using liquid graphite. Another company, Parker Pens, had developed a similar product called Liquid Lead that was a few months behind Scripto in production. To avoid a costly patent fight the two companies agreed to share their formulas with each other on Valentine's Day of that year.[17]
In 1980, Scripto produced its first erasable pen.[7]
Other writing products included the Pussycat, Feathertone, Satellite, Prestige, Escort, Action, T210, K780, and the K21 pens.[18][7]
The Vu lighter was the first see-through lighter. This allowed the user to see how much lighter fluid was left in it.
The Electra lighter, introduced in 1985, ignited the lighter fluid with an electric spark instead of the old spark wheel.[13]
Scripto has had several notable people over the years advertise their products. In the 1960s, the company used a jingle by Tony Romeo in its advertising.[19] In 1972, cartoonist Harvey Kurtzman appeared in a television advertisement for Scripto pens.[20] Model Genevieve Chappell has appeared in advertisements for Scripto lighters.
In 1960, the company was involved in the far-reaching court case of Scripto, Inc. v. Carson which was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. The court decided that the company was liable for collecting use tax in Florida even though it did not have facilities or employees in the state. It did have ten salesmen (who it equipped with catalogs and other items) who had specified territories and were only paid on commission. The court ruled that the company was operating in the state, even though it salesmen were not company employees.[21][22]
In 2003, Scripto was sued in Illinois court after the death of Jillian Calles, aged 3, when a fire was started by a sibling using the Aim N Flame lighter. The family claimed the product was defective because it did not have a child safety device. The trial court dismissed the case saying that Scripto did not violate any laws. The Calles family appealed to the Appellate Court which overruled the trial court's decision. Scripto appealed the Appellate Court's decision, and in 2007 the case made it to the Illinois Supreme Court. Illinois courts used two tests in product safety cases: the Consumer expectations test and the Risk-utility test. The Illinois Supreme Court ruled that the Aim N Flame passed the Consumer Expectation Test but not the Risk-Utility Test. This ruling affirmed the Appellate Court ruling and sent the case back to trial court. In 2010, Scripto settled the suit for $3.5 million.[23][24]
Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
Scripto is an American brand currently owned by Calico Brands. The original manufacturing company was founded in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1923 by Monie A. Ferst. At one time the largest producer of writing instruments in the world, now Calico Brands markets butane lighters under the Scripto brand.
Workers for the Scripto company in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, held a labor strike from November 27, 1964, to January 9, 1965. It ended when the company and union agreed to a three-year contract that included wage increases and improved employee benefits. The strike was an important event in the history of the civil rights movement, as both civil rights leaders and organized labor activists worked together to support the strike. Scripto produced writing implements and lighters in the 1960s. Its main production facility was based in Sweet Auburn, an African-American neighborhood of Atlanta, and the company's workforce was primarily made up of black women. Since 1940, there had been various attempts to unionize the factory, including an effort by the United Steelworkers in the 1940s. By and large, unionization efforts were supported by members of Atlanta's black elite and by black church leaders in the area, who believed that a union could help improve the working conditions and wages for the workers. In 1963, the International Chemical Workers' Union (ICWU) was able to unionize the plant. This came during the civil rights movement, and union organizers succeeded in part by tying their union drive to the larger fight for civil rights that was occurring throughout the country and especially in the southern United States, where the plant was located. Following the unionization, the ICWU sought to secure a labor contract with Scripto, but the company instead challenged the union in court, arguing that the union election had been unfair. After the National Labor Relations Board ruled against the company, they remained reluctant to negotiate with the union, and negotiations continued into November 1964. The main point of contention regarded wage increases, as the union wanted an eight-percent raise across the board while the company pushed for a four-percent wage increase for "skilled" employees and a two-percent raise for "unskilled" employees. The union argued that this was racially discriminatory, as almost all of the factory's white employees were considered skilled and nearly all of the African American employees were considered unskilled. On November 25, the day before Thanksgiving, many workers gathered and announced plans for a labor strike. Working over the holiday to prepare picket signs and coordinate logistics, they began their strike on November 27, with about 700 workers performing a walkout. From the onset, the strike had the support of several civil rights organizations, including the A. Philip Randolph Institute, Operation Breadbasket, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the latter of which was led by Martin Luther King Jr. King was an avid supporter of the strike, as many of the strikers were congregants of his Ebenezer Baptist Church, and he helped coordinate a nationwide boycott of Scripto products. However, as the strike continued, both the union and company remained at an impasse in negotiations, and eventually, King began to negotiate in secret with company president Carl Singer over an agreement to end the strike. After several weeks of discussions, King agreed to call off the boycott if Singer agreed to give the striking employees their Christmas bonuses. This deal, which was made without the knowledge of the union, was announced on December 24 and saw an end to King or the SCLC's involvement in the strike. Union representatives were upset with King's actions, which some historians say may have constitute an unfair labor practice. However, by this time, the union's strike fund had been nearly depleted, and without the SCLC's support, they were willing to negotiate a compromise with the company. On January 9, 1965, the union and company signed a three-year labor contract that saw an across-the-board wage increase of $0.04 per hour for every year of the contract. Additionally, workers improved employee benefits, such as additional vacation days and increased pay for working afternoon shifts. In the aftermath of the strike, King received criticism from many different groups for his involvement, including labor activists and business leaders, and as a result, King and the SCLC refrained from involvement in another major labor dispute until the Memphis sanitation strike in 1968. Meanwhile, the company and the union developed a better relationship and jointly worked on a replacement to the "skilled"/"unskilled" system that had been at the root of the labor dispute. However, in 1977, with the Sweet Auburn facility considered outdated and the company facing increased competition, Scripto closed the plant and relocated to another facility in the Atlanta metropolitan area. The plant was eventually demolished and today the site is a parking lot for the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park. Discussing the strike in 2018, historian Joseph M. Thompson stated that, while it is primarily viewed by historians in the context of King's involvement and the larger civil rights movement, it also represents a longstanding history of labor organizing among African American women in Atlanta, comparing it to other events such as the 1881 Atlanta washerwomen strike and saying, "Within this broader context, the 1964 Scripto strike looks less like a product of the midcentury civil rights movements and more like a victory in the long fight for black women's economic rights in Atlanta".
Scripto Enterprises Inc. is an American computer software company based in Studio City, Los Angeles. It offers screenwriting, television production, and narrative video game development software. The company was founded in 2014 by comedian Stephen Colbert, former The Colbert Report writer and coder Rob Dubbin, and Colbert's wife Evie McGee Colbert. The company offers a screenwriting software, also called Scripto, a cloud based collaborative writing platform, developed to address shortcomings in the writing program they were using at the time. The software is used by shows like The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, The Daily Show and SNL's Weekend Update.
Rusty Foster (born July 1976) is an American media critic and programmer. He has been described as "something of a Zelig-like figure in internet history, popping up in key roles at various stages in the web’s development." He is the author of Today in Tabs, the founder of Kuro5hin, and the creator of Scoop, a collaborative media application used by several websites. He also helped develop Scripto, the screenwriting software company founded by Stephen Colbert. In 2013, his Facebook account was subject to a "prank" reporting him dead, drawing the attention of several major news outlets. Since 2013, Foster has written occasionally for The New Yorker magazine.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
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