“While teaching at Elon and working towards the doctorate at Duke, Powell perceived the need for a biological supply house that could provide schools and colleges with their laboratory specimens. At the time, only two other businesses in the United States supplied specimens for classroom use — teachers were expected to collect their own protozoan, frogs, and animal skeletons.
“Powell began his business on a part-time basis in 1927 in a woodshed beside a pond at Elon College. Nine years later he resigned his teaching position to devote full time to management of the growing company.”
— From Thomas Edward Powell Jr.’s entry (1994) by George W. Troxler in the Dictionary of North Carolina Biography
This ink blotter promotes the company as “a dependable culture service.”