This office supply business was founded in 1956 on Chicago's North Side by Jack Miller, who was joined in the business by his brothers Harvey and Arnold. The Millers' office supply business moved to the Irving Park neighborhood in western Chicago in 1960; during the 1970s it would relocate again, first to Northbrook and then to Lincolnshire. A successful catalog business pushed the company's annual sales up from $3.5 million in 1973 to over $400 million by the mid-1990s, when Quill was the largest independent mail-order office supply company in the country. Before the Millers sold the company in 1998 for $685 million to Massachusetts-based Staples Inc., Quill employed about 1,200 people in the Chicago area. Under new ownership, Quill kept its name and continued operations in Chicago without other major changes.

This entry is part of the Encyclopedia's Dictionary of Leading Chicago Businesses (1820-2000) that was prepared by Mark R. Wilson, with additional contributions from Stephen R. Porter and Janice L. Reiff.