Photocopier

On September 16, 1959, the Haloid Xerox company unveiled the Model 914 at the Sherry Netherland Hotel in New York City. For the first time, anyone could place an original document on a glass plate, press a button, and receive a copy on plain paper in fifteen seconds. The 600-pound machine, named for its ability to copy sheets up to 9 by 14 inches, was called 'the most successful single product of all time.' Predictions of 5,000 units over three years proved wildly conservative—by 1962, over 10,000 had shipped, and more than 200,000 would be manufactured before production ended in 1976.

The technology underlying the Xerox 914 had waited twenty-one years for its moment. On October 22, 1938, in Astoria, Queens, patent attorney Chester Carlson and his assistant Otto Kornei produced the world's first xerographic copy. They charged a sulfur-coated zinc plate with static electricity, exposed it to light through a glass slide bearing the words '10.-22.-38 ASTORIA' in India ink, sprinkled the plate with lycopodium powder (which adhered to charged areas), and transferred the powder image to wax paper. The process was crude but proved the concept Carlson called 'electrophotography'—copying using only electricity and light, no wet chemicals required.

The adjacent possible for practical xerography required two natural phenomena: that materials of opposite electrical charges attract, and that some materials (photoconductors) become better conductors of electricity when exposed to light. Carlson's genius was recognizing that these phenomena could be combined into a copying process. A photoconductor surface holds a uniform electrostatic charge in darkness; exposure to light through an original document discharges some areas, creating an invisible electrostatic image; oppositely charged toner particles stick to the still-charged areas; the toner is transferred to paper and fused with heat. Six steps, no wet chemistry, copies on ordinary paper.

Why did commercialization take twenty-one years? Carlson spent 1939-1944 being rejected by more than twenty companies, including IBM, Kodak, and RCA. The process seemed too complex, the potential market unclear. Only the Haloid Company, a small Rochester photographic paper manufacturer looking to diversify, took interest. They licensed Carlson's patents in 1946, renamed the process 'xerography' (Greek for 'dry writing') in 1948, and spent a decade engineering a practical machine. The Model A of 1949 required thirty-nine manual steps to make a copy—usable, but far from convenient.

The 914 finally delivered on xerography's promise. The machine automated the entire six-step process: charge, expose, develop, transfer, fuse, clean. An operator simply positioned the original and pressed a button. The machine could produce 7.5 copies per minute after the first fifteen-second copy—approximately 400 copies per hour. Haloid renamed itself Xerox Corporation, and its stock became one of the great growth stories of the 1960s.

The photocopier's social impact exceeded its commercial success. By making document reproduction effortless, it transformed office work, enabled grassroots political organizing, facilitated samizdat literature in authoritarian regimes, and created entirely new problems around copyright and confidentiality. The technology that Carlson demonstrated in a Queens apartment with lycopodium powder and wax paper fundamentally altered how information flows through organizations and societies.