Editing Slate (writing)

{{short description|Writing medium}}
[[File:MEK II-411.jpg|thumb|upright=1.35|Slate with writing from 1894, used in [[Berlin]], Germany, currently at the [[Museum Europäischer Kulturen]]]]

A '''slate''' is a thin piece of hard flat material, historically [[Slate|slate stone]], which is used as a medium for writing on.<ref>{{Cite OED|slate|id=1122401179}} 2.a.</ref> Writing on a slate is impermanent and easily erased, and the same slate is then reused.

== {{anchor|Slate pencil}}Usage ==

The writing slate consisted of a piece of slate, typically either 4x6 inches or 7x10 inches, encased in a wooden frame.<ref>"Standard Sizes of Blackboard Slate", U.S Department of Commerce: National Bureau of Standards (1966), 3.</ref> Split slate was prepared by scraping with a steel edge, grinding with a flat stone and, finally, polishing with a mix of slate powder in water. Pencils were of a softer stone, such as [[shale]], [[chalk]] or [[soapstone]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Gwyn |first1=David |title=Welsh slate: archaeology and history of an industry |date=2015 |publisher=[[Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales]] |location=Aberystwyth |isbn=978-1-871184-5-56 |page=45}}</ref> In 1853 [[Charles Goodyear]] patented a compound of [[vulcanised rubber|hard-vulcanised rubber]] with powdered [[porcelain]], from which to make white pencils for writing on slates.<ref>{{cite book |title=Specifications relating to India Rubber (Caoutchouc) and Gutta Percha, including air, fire, and water proofing |date=1859 |publisher=[[Eyre & Spottiswoode]] |location=London |page=343}}</ref>

Usually, a piece of cloth or slate sponge, sometimes attached with a string to the bottom of the writing slate, was used to erase it for reuse.

== History ==
The exact origins of the writing slate remain unclear. References to its use can be found in the fourteenth century and evidence suggests that it was used in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The central time period for the writing slate, however, "appears to begin in the later eighteenth century, when developments in sea and [[land transport]] permitted the gradual expansion of slate quarrying in [[Wales]] and the growth of a substantial slate workshop industry."<ref>Davies, 63.</ref>

[[Image:Schiefertafelmitschwamm.jpg|thumb|upright|Slate with sponge (~1950)]]

By the nineteenth century, writing slates were used around the world in nearly every school and were a central part of the [[slate industry]]. At the dawn of the twentieth century, writing slates were the primary tool in the [[classroom]] for students. In the 1930s (or later) writing slates began to be replaced by more modern methods.<ref>Davies, 64-65.</ref> However, writing slates did not become totally obsolete; they are still made in the twenty-first century, though in small quantities.

The writing slate was sometimes used by industry workers to track goods and by sailors to calculate their [[geographical location]] at sea. Sometimes multiple pieces of slate were bound together into a "book" and horizontal lines were etched onto the slate surface as a guide for neat handwriting.<ref>Davies, 63-64.</ref>

== See also ==

* [[Clay tablet]]
* [[Blackboard]]

== References ==
{{reflist}}

==Sources==
*{{Cite journal |last=Davies |first=Peter |title=Writing Slates and Schooling |journal=[[Australasian Society for Historical Archaeology|Australasian Historical Archaeology]] |volume=23 |year=2005 |pages=63–69|jstor=29544535}}
*{{Cite book |title=Standard Sizes of Blackboard Slate |publisher=U.S. Department of Commerce, National Bureau of Standards |year=1966}}

[[Category:Writing media]]
[[Category:Slate]]
[[Category:Educational devices]]