Before email, before PDFs, before scanning apps on your phone – if you needed to copy a document, it was a whole ordeal. Think carbon paper, typewriter re-drafts, or paying someone to manually duplicate pages. It was clunky, unreliable, and expensive. And frankly? It drove one man round the bend. That man was Chester F. Carlson, and in 1938, in a tiny room above a bar in New York, he invented something that would go on to shape every office in the world: the photocopier.
From Legal Frustration to Electrical Inspiration
Carlson wasn’t a flashy entrepreneur or Silicon Valley type (not that it existed then). He was a quiet, determined patent clerk – the sort of job where precision matters, deadlines pile up, and every mistake means retyping a document from scratch.
He also had arthritis, which made writing and re-copying even more of a chore. So when faced with the endless grind of document duplication, he started thinking: surely there’s a better way?
Spoiler: there was.
The Kitchen Above a Bar – And a Very Important Date
In 1934, Carlson began tinkering with an idea in his apartment kitchen. It was messy work – chemicals, powders, burning smells – so he eventually moved into a makeshift lab above a bar in Astoria, Queens. That “lab” was a converted kitchen too. Imagine inventing world-changing tech in a room that probably still smelled of beer and frying oil.
But it was there, on October 22, 1938, with the help of his assistant Otto Kornei, that Carlson pulled off the first successful electrophotographic copy – a process later renamed xerography, which literally means “dry writing”.
What did he copy? A handwritten message: “10-22-38 Astoria.” Not the most poetic thing in the world – but that fuzzy little image kicked off a billion-dollar industry.
The (Very Manual) Magic Behind It
The process was clever, but it wasn’t exactly push-button. Here’s a quick look at how the first xerographic image came to life:
- Charge it up – A zinc plate was coated with sulfur and statically charged by rubbing it with a handkerchief.
- Shine a light – A glass slide with “10-22-38 Astoria” written on it was placed on top and hit with bright light. The charge disappeared from light-exposed areas, but stuck around in the darker bits – essentially forming an invisible copy.
- Add powder – Carlson sprinkled lycopodium powder (yes, a plant spore) onto the plate. It stuck to the charged bits, revealing the image.
- Transfer & fix – He pressed the powder image onto wax paper and used heat to set it.
And boom – a copy. No ink. No developer fluid. No magic. Just science, grit, and a touch of homemade chemistry.
Rejected Over 20 Times… Then Everything Changed
Despite the genius behind it, nobody was buying it. IBM? Not interested. General Electric? Passed. More than 20 companies said no. They couldn’t see the potential – mainly because the process was fiddly and didn’t seem “ready”.
But Carlson didn’t give up. In 1944, he convinced the Battelle Memorial Institute to help develop it further. Then, a small company called the Haloid Company took a chance on the commercial side.
Haloid would later change its name to a word we all now recognise: Xerox.
The Xerox 914: The Machine That Made It All Worthwhile
After years of refinement, Xerox introduced the Xerox 914 in 1959 – the first easy-to-use, office-ready photocopier. It could make copies with the push of a button. No mess, no fuss, no waiting.
It was the breakthrough moment.
Within a few years, it became a must-have in every office – and Carlson, who once toiled in obscurity above a pub, became a millionaire many times over.
The Quiet Genius Who Changed the Way We Work
Chester Carlson never set out to build an empire. He just wanted to make life easier – for himself and people like him. And he did, in a way that most of us now take completely for granted.
That scrappy little lab above a bar? It turned into the foundation of a global industry.
So next time you hit “print” or make a quick copy at work, just remember: it all started with arthritis, frustration, and a bit of lycopodium powder in a converted kitchen in Queens.
Not bad for a guy with a handkerchief and a dream.
