Why Obama Used Multiple Pens to Write a Single Signature?

Barack Obama Signature Barack Obama Signed the bill using 22 Fountain Pens (Picture: Chuck Kennedy)

President Barack Obama signed the historic healthcare bill at the White House using not one, or two, but 22 different pens to sign this history bill.

The TIME explains the rationale behind multi-pen signatures:

The pen used to sign historic legislation itself becomes a historical artifact. The more pens a President uses, the more thank-you gifts he can offer to those who helped create that piece of history. The White House often engraves the pens, which are then given as keepsakes to key proponents or supporters of the newly signed legislation.

You can actually make out that the signature was not written in one shot – just look at the breaks in the letter ‘O’ of his name.

The Pens of President Obama

Here’s a video from White House where Staff Secretary Lisa Brown explains why Presidents of America use so many pens to sign important or historic legislations.

Amit Agarwal

Amit Agarwal

Google Developer Expert, Google Cloud Champion

Amit Agarwal is a Google Developer Expert in Google Workspace and Google Apps Script. He holds an engineering degree in Computer Science (I.I.T.) and is the first professional blogger in India.

Amit has developed several popular Google add-ons including Mail Merge for Gmail and Document Studio. Read more on Lifehacker and YourStory

0

Awards & Titles

Digital Inspiration has won several awards since it's launch in 2004.

Google Developer Expert

Google Developer Expert

Google awarded us the Google Developer Expert award recogizing our work in Google Workspace.

ProductHunt Golden Kitty

ProductHunt Golden Kitty

Our Gmail tool won the Lifehack of the Year award at ProductHunt Golden Kitty Awards in 2017.

Microsoft MVP Alumni

Microsoft MVP Alumni

Microsoft awarded us the Most Valuable Professional (MVP) title for 5 years in a row.

Google Cloud Champion

Google Cloud Champion

Google awarded us the Champion Innovator title recognizing our technical skill and expertise.

Email Newsletter

Sign up for our email newsletter to stay up to date.

We will never send any spam emails. Promise.