Above, the head of a 2-hole hanging clipboard I picked up years ago. An earlier clip under the 'Shannon' name was patented in 1878 by the Yawman & Erbe Company of Rochester, New York and advertised as the 'Shannon Single Arch File No. 1, Office Specialty Manufacturing Company, Rochester, New York, 1897.' Yawman & Erbe model.

Rochester, N.Y., Yawman and Erbe manufacturing company, 1936. L., v-xviii, 254 p. 91951: Yawman & Erbe mfg.co. (36-5903) 1094. In the second year. Globalink Power Translator 64 Bits. London (etc.) Cassell and company, limited (1936, 300 p. 5, 1936; A ad int. 30; Macmillan co, New York.

From eBay The Yawman & Erbe Company of Rochester New York was founded in the 1870's by Philip H. Yawman and Gustave Erbe, two former employees of Bausch & Lomb. Along with the Globe-Wernicke Company of Cincinnati, Ohio and the Art Metal Construction Company of Jamestown, New York, Yawman & Erbe were among the first American manufacturers of vertical filing cabinets. It seems that the company changed its name to the Office Specialty Manufacturing Company in the early 1880's, although the Yawman & Erbe name may also have been retained for use on other products. Under the new company name, the initial product was a filing device to facilitate the collection of invoices and other records. Hard to believe, but this was a revolutionary concept at the time, as the ad below from one of their competitors indicates.

The Toronto head office fell victim to the 1903 fire in that city that destroyed 139 businesses, but a new office building was constructed. Their product line expanded to include snow shovels, an essential item for store owners back then and good source of profit, as each shovel grossed over half a cent. In 1920, the Newmarket location became the head office for the corporation, while regional offices were continued in Halifax, Quebec City, Ottawa, Hamilton, Winnipeg, Calgary, Regina, Edmonton and Vancouver. Like most office furniture companies, they made the transition from wood to steel (for fire safety reasons), although the steel products were initially shaped and finished to look like wood. Here's how one 1949 article described operations in the factory.