I went into a store yesterday and I noticed one of the clerks was wearing a shirt with a pocket and he had pocket protector. It looked like he had about 3 or 4 pens or pencils in his pocket. I realized that, one — a lot of people don’t wear shirts with pockets so much anymore, they prefer T-shirts or polo shirts and two — you almost never see anyone with a pocket protector.
When I was growing up, there weren’t, of course any iPhones or laptops — men used mechanical pencils and fountain pens or ball-point pens and they didn’t carry purses. Only executives carried briefcases, so pencils/pens were carried in their shirt pockets. Fairly often, the pencil lead would color the bottom of the shirt pocket or the pens would leak and ruin the shirt.
I imagine those were the reasons that shirt protectors were invented. The guys that wore those protectors were typically engineers, draftsmen or maybe even people like accountants. They looked kind of geeky or nerdy back then — even before there were “geeks” and “nerds.” At some point around the time when computers became more ubiquitous, pocket protectors fell out of favor and became things to be made fun of, as well as the guys that wore them.
Pocket protectors became a great platform for advertising — lots of companies gave their employees protectors with their company logo imprinted on them and they were popular to hand out at trade fairs, and events like that. There is even a Pocket Protector Preservation Society.
The National Academy of Engineering hosted an event in 2000 where they presented their list of the Greatest Engineering Achievements of the 20th Century. Neil Armstrong attended and during his speech, said, “I am, and ever will be, a white-socks, pocket-protector, nerdy engineer.” I’m not sure if he was wearing his pocket-protector when he stepped foot on the Moon, but I’m sure he gave all the engineers still wearing theirs some sense of professional pride…..
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