The article you cited said the ballpoint pen was "widespread by the early 20th century"
Nope. It had been invented in the 1880s, but the first commercial success wasn't until actually the second half of the 20th century. See the history below, which is extracted from
http://inventors.miningco.com/library/weekly/aa101697.htm 1938: Invention of a ballpoint pen by two Hungarian
inventors, Ladislo and George Biro. The brothers
both worked on the pen and applied for patents in
1938 and 1940. The new-formed Eterpen Company in
Argentina commercialized the Biro pen. The press
hailed the success of this writing tool because it
could write for a year without refilling.
May 1945: Eversharp Co. teams up with
Eberhard-Faber to acquire the exclusive rights to
Biro Pens of Argentina. The pen re-branded the
“Eversharp CA” which stood for Capillary Action.
Released to the press months in advance of public
sales.
June, 1945: Less than a month after
Eversharp/Eberhard close the deal with Eterpen,
Chicago businessman, Milton Reynolds visits Buenos
Aires. While in a store, he sees the Biro pen and
recognizes the pen’s sales potential. He buys a few
pens as samples. Reynolds returns to America and
starts the Reynolds International Pen Company,
ignoring Eversharp’s patent rights.
October 29, 1945: Reynolds copies the product in
four months and sells his product Reynold's Rocket
at Gimbel’s department store in New York City.
Reynolds’ imitation beats Eversharp to market.
Reynolds’ pen is immediately successful: Priced at
$12.50, $100,000 worth sold the first day on the
market.
December, 1945: Britain was not far behind with the
first ballpoint pens available to the public sold
at Christmas by the Miles-Martin Pen company.
The ballpoint pen becomes a fad.
Ballpoint pens guaranteed to write for two years
without refilling, claimed to be smear proof.
Reynolds advertised it as the pen "to write under
water."
Eversharp sued Reynolds for copying the design it
had acquired legally.
The previous 1888 patent by John Loud would
have invalidated everyone's claims. But no
one knew that at the time.
Sales skyrocketed for both competitors. But the
Reynolds’ pen leaked, skipped and often failed to
write. Eversharp’s pen did not live up to its own
advertisements. A very high volume of pen returns
occurred for both Eversharp and Reynolds.
The ballpoint pen fad ended - due to consumer
unhappiness
1948: Frequent price wars, poor quality products,
and heavy advertising costs hurt each side. Sales
did a nosedive. The original asking price of $12.50
dropped to less than 50 cents per pen.
1950: The French Baron called Bich, drops the h and
starts BIC® and starts selling pens.
1951: The ballpoint pen dies a consumer death.
Fountain pens are number one again. Reynolds folds.
The battle is won.
January, 1954: Parker Pens introduces its first
ballpoint pen, the Jotter. The Jotter wrote five
times longer than the Eversharp or Reynolds pens.
It had a variety of point sizes, a rotating
cartridge and large-capacity ink refills. Best of
all, it worked. Parker sold 3.5 million Jotters @
$2.95 to $8.75 in less then one year.
