Gallery of Oddities: Interesting Things in Harvard's Closets

Thoreau's Pencil

This pencil belonged to the writer Henry David Thoreau, who grew up in Concord, Mass., as the son of a pencil manufacturer. Thoreau invented a process of milling the graphite for the core of the pencil that prevented problematic smearing, but he did not patent it.

Piano Keys on a Telegraph

This printing telegraph from the late 1800s contains a keyboard composed of piano keys. Before the invention of mechanical writing machines like typewriters, many devices relied on piano keys to function like a keyboard.