Eberhard Faber

German businessman

Also known as: John Eberhard Faber

Written and fact-checked byThe Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

:: Dec. 6, 1822, Stein, Bavaria [Germany]

:: March 2, 1879, New York, N.Y., U.S.

Also Known As:: John Eberhard Faber

Eberhard Faberwas a German businessman who, with his brother Lothar, expanded his family’s pencil company into a global art supplies enterprise.

Faber moved to the United States in 1849 and built a manufacturing plant in 1861, the first large-scale American pencil factory, to serve an American market previously supplied by exports from his brother’s plant in Europe. The Eberhard Faber Pencil Company was incorporated in 1898. Although the German and American branches of the company split in 1903, the two were reunited in 1987 under the name Faber-Castell.