About

The How Company was a ribbon and carbon company active in Old Town in the first decades of the 20st century. Joseph Sidney Epstein (later Eaton) (1895-1982) worked for the company as a very young teenager around 1908 and then went on to establish the Old Town Ribbon and Carbon Company in New York, with annual sales exceeding $5,000,000 by 1951. We also know that the How-Ko brand made by the How Company was listed among the acceptable typewriter ribbons for use by Massachusetts Government workers in 1910. By 1914, however, the How-Ko brand is apparently manufactured by the Storms Company in New York. Although the company seems to have been quite successful based on the number of artefacts offered on-line, it is unclear who owned the company. The only How living in Old Town at the time was Fred B. How, who died in 1913 and who was a machinist by trade.