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Xerography The Development of Designated an International Historic Landmark The American Society of Mechanical Engineers October 20, 1983

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Page 1: Xerography The Developmentof - ASME...he story of xerography is really three stories. One is of a visionary man who recognized a need, then devoted his life to seek-ing technical solutions

XerographyThe Development of

Designated an International Historic LandmarkThe American Society of Mechanical Engineers

October 20, 1983

Page 2: Xerography The Developmentof - ASME...he story of xerography is really three stories. One is of a visionary man who recognized a need, then devoted his life to seek-ing technical solutions

Chester Carlson memorabilia, including a photograph of the inventor as a high school senior anda page from his scrapbook with a xerographic portrait made at Battelle in 1950.

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T he story of xerographyis really three stories.

One is of a visionaryman who recognized a

need, then devoted his life to seek-ing technical solutions and finan-cial support to fulfill it.

Another is of an innovative re-search organization that had theforesight to invest in an idea andthe technical talents to engineerits basic concept into a viableworking process.

And the third is of a small, entre-preneuring company with thecourage to defy the conventionaland to risk its assets in success-fully bringing a new concept andpioneering technology to themarketplace.

This classic three-in-one talestretches over two-and-a-half dec-ades and it illustrates the best inAmerican innovation, in individ-ual initiative, and in team spirit.

Despite early hardships and re-peated predictions of failure, theeffort culminated with the highlysuccessful introduction and mar-keting of one of the twentiethcentury’s most novel products:an easy-to-use copying processthat rapidly and inexpensivelyproduces copies through electricaland mechanical means. With theadvent of the Xerox machine, thewhole world suddenly possessedthe ability to generate copies atthe push of a button.

The process has imparted to thisand future generations a new wayto manage information. Its univer-sal acceptance by business andgovernment has improved theflow of communication.

Most importantly, like fewother developments before it, xero-graphy has filled an Americantechnology dream—creating amultinational, multibillion dollarindustry employing hundreds ofthousands of people.

Taken during 1947 research on xerography, this photo depictselectrostatic imaging.

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The Dream

The year was 1935 andAmerica was in themidst of the GreatDepression when 29-

year-old Chester Carlson, a patentattorney with a physics back-ground, conceived the idea for anoffice copier and began his per-sonal crusade to create a new erain the printing industry.

An inquisitive and thoughtfulman, Carlson always had been fas-cinated by the graphic arts. Evenas a teenager, he ran the press fora small printer and started his ownnewspaper for amateur chemists.

Although his newspaper“folded” after its second edition,Carlson later recalled: “I was im-pressed with the tremendousamount of labor involved in get-ting something into print.” Thatstarted him thinking about easierduplicating methods.

Carlson went on to study phys-ics at the California Institute ofTechnology and eventually law atthe New York Law School. It was in1935, in his job as a patent attor-ney at the New York office of theP.R. Mallory & Co., when he againbegan thinking of easier ways toduplicate material.

“We had constant need for extracopies of patent specifications,” herecalled. “They were sent to associ-ates in foreign countries, to com-panies, to inventors, and others.We would need a dozen or morecopies of every specification. Tomake 12 copies with carbon paperis pretty difficult. Often it involvedtwo typing operations.”

Additionally, there was no quickor easy method of getting copies ofdrawings, other than by enlistingthe aid of a photocopy firm. Thewait was as long as 24 hours.

“I recognized a very great needthen for a machine that could beright in an office where you couldbring a document to it, push it in aslot, push a button, and get a copyout,” he said. “I set for myself aspare-time project of trying to fillthat need.”

The Concept

T he starting point wasthe New York Public Li-brary, where Carlsonspent evenings and

weekends reading everything hecould find on imaging processes.

Quickly he determined hewanted a copying—not a dupli-cating—process. And he realizedthat the process would need toinvolve some unconventionalphotograpy.

He became engrossed in thethen little-known field of photo-conductivity and his ideas beganto take shape. He was determinedto create a visible image usingan electrostatic charge.

His concept called for provid-ing an electrical charge on a platecoated with a photoconductive ma-terial. This plate would be exposedto the image of a document to becopied. Light would discharge thesurface of the plate in all but theimage area, which being unex-posed, would remain charged.

A black powder then would bedusted onto the surface. The pow-der would electrostatically adhereto the charged image area, mak-ing a visible image. Finally, thepowder image would be trans-ferred to a sheet of paper, whereit would be fixed to produce a per-manent copy.

“It was so clear to me at the verybeginning that here was a wonder-ful idea,” he later remembered. “Iwas convinced, even before testingit, that it was pretty sure to workand that if it did it would be a tre-mendous thing.”

Worried that other inventorswere on his trail, Carlson first tooksteps to forestall the competitionby filing a patent application. Hedid so on October 18, 1937, callingthe process electrophotography.Since his work was so innovative,he was awarded broad patentprotection.

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Early Research

Next he tackled the prob-lem of reducing theoryto practice. He startedby experimenting,

after work, in the kitchen of hisapartment in Long Island. Butsoon, frustrated by lack of timeand hindered by arthritis, Carlsondecided he needed help. He hired ayoung Austrian physicist, OttoKornei, to help him and they setup a lab in a second-floor roomover a bar and grill in nearbyAstoria.

It was here that Carlson firstsucceeded in producing a powderimage. He did it on a photoconduc-tive layer of sulfur coated on ametal plate.

The story goes like this: Carlsonand Kornei first charged thecoated plate electrically by rub-bing it with a cotton handkerchief.Next, they placed over that plate aglass plate with the date-and-placelegend, “10-22-38 Astoria”. Theythen exposed this sandwich to aflood lamp for three seconds.

At this point they dusted acrossthe exposed plate some dyed lyco-podium powder—the spores of acreeping evergreen plant. Lyco-podium particles adhered to thecharged portions of the plate thathad been protected from exposureto light. Next, Carlson pressedwaxed paper against the sulfurcoating, and the powder particlestransferred to the surface of thepaper.

The result: a transferred imageof “10-22-38 Astoria”—and his-tory in the making.

Sept. 12, 1944. C. F. CARLSON 2,357,809ELECTRO-PHOTOGRAPHIC APPARATUS

Filed Nov. 16, 1940 5 Sheets–Sheet 2

A page from a patentChester Carlson receivedon electrophotography,later called xerography.

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Search for Support

F or the next severalyears, Carlson tried todevelop his inventionand to obtain outside

help in perfecting and marketingit. He contacted more than twentyorganizations, including severalmajor corporations. Each turnedhim down. Electrophotographywas an idea whose time had notyet arrived.

“After talking to a number ofpeople in industry, I found that mylittle crude demonstration did notimpress them,” Carlson said later.“A technical person could usuallyunderstand it, but few of them sawthe potential in it. Businessmenwere not very impressed with it.It was hard to find anyone whocould visualize what could be donetoward the engineering develop-ment of the process.”

Finally, though, the pendulumbegan to swing. In 1944, scientistsat Battelle Memorial Institute, theworlds foremost contract researchand development organization,saw value in Carlson’s crudeinvention.

Enter Battelle

After their business discussion,Carlson told Dayton about his in-vention. Dayton recognized thatit might be of interest to BattelleDevelopment Corporation, asubsidiary that developed newinventions.

The Institute invited Carlson toits headquarters in Columbus,Ohio, to demonstrate his inven-tion. When Carlson presented hisfindings, Dayton remarked:“However crude this may seem,this is the first time any of youhave seen a reproduction madewithout any chemical reactionand by a dry process.”

Battelle management andgraphic arts specialists agreed.The process, they felt, looked “likea good research gamble.” They en-visioned many applications in ad-dition to office copying. Some eventhought it would find a place in theprinting industry alongside lith-ography and photoengraving.

So in October of 1944—six yearsafter Carlson made his first image—Battelle signed a contract withCarlson to develop the process.Under the agreement, Battellewould financially support thedevelopment as well as conductresearch in exchange for royaltiesonce electrophotography wascommercialized.

Battelle DevelopmentWork Begins

T he graphic arts re-search group at Bat-telle was assigned theproject. Although at

the time World War II was stillgoing on and most Battelle workfocused on the war effort, a smallgroup of staff enthusiasticallyembarked on the new project. Yet,the scientists did so sensing thatmany technical difficulties layahead of them.

They began work on improvingthe process and on learning itsbasic principles. They obtained abetter understanding of whatworked, what didn’t, and why.

As a result, the Battelle staffsignificantly advanced Carlson’stechnology. A major step was thediscovery that one form of pureselenium was a particularly goodphotoconductive insulator, sensi-tive enough to make a copyingprocess practical.

Equally important, improve-ments were made in ways todevelop the powder image. Thepowder became a pigmented resinthat could be fused to the paper. Amixture of that fine powder with

T he union between Carl-son and Battelle wasby fortuitous happen-stance. Battelle’s Dr.

Russell W. Dayton was meeting withpatent attorney Carlson to discusssome business between Battelleand P.R. Mallory and Company.

Early Battelle demon-strations of the xero-graphic process. Here,researchers used heat tofuse the powder and fixthe image on the paper tocreate a permanent print.

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coarser particles chosen to controlthe charge on the powder made itpossible to develop clean, sharpimages.

Other significant early improve-ments included developing tech-niques for charging the plate bymeans of a corona discharge, andfor electrostatically transferringthe powder image to paper using acorona discharge.

Enter Haloid

A s the months went byand with many techni-cal questions still re-maining, Battelle

decided it needed a partner to sup-port further research costs and toeventually produce and marketthe product. By a set of happy cir-cumstances, such a partner ap-peared—The Haloid Company, asmall Rochester-based manufac-turer of photographic and photo-copy papers

Shortly after the end of WorldWar II, Haloid President Joseph C.Wilson recognized that the com-pany needed to improve its profitposition by finding other prod-ucts. About this time, Dr. JohnDessauer, Haloid’s research chief,read a description of the new proc-ess in Radio News. He and Wilsonagreed the process merited acloser examination. They eventu-ally came to Battelle to discusshow The Haloid Company couldenter this field.

After the visit Wilson acknowl-edged: “Of course, it’s got a millionmiles to go before it will be market-able. But when it does become mar-ketable, we’ve got to be in thepicture.”

Following months of negotia-tions, in December of 1946 Battelleand Haloid agreed that Haloidwould sponsor part of Battelle’scontinuing research. In exchange,

Haloid would receive a license todevelop machines that would printup to 20 copies.

This basic agreement was re-vised several times, because of thelarge investments required to fi-nally bring the process to commer-cial profitability. Eventually,exclusive and permanent rightsfor Carlson’s and Battelle’s patentswere assigned to Haloid and bothBattelle and Carlson received roy-alties, and later, Haloid stock.

The two parties also agreed thatelectrophotography, the wordCarlson had coined to describe hisprocess, was too cumbersome.Instead, they desired “a crisp,startling name, as new as the in-vention itself.”

A classical language professorwas consulted and the name xer-ography was selected. It stemsfrom the Greek xeros, for dry, andgraphos, for writing.

Aluminum plateswere coated with selen-ium at Battelle usingthis vacuum system.

Battelle used a mixture of fine pow-der and coarser particles to developimages on xerographic plates.

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The First Product

On October 22, 1948—ten years to the dayafter Carlson createdthe first xerographic

image—the process had its firstpublic demonstration. It was inDetroit at a meeting of the Ameri-can Optical Society.

Like so many times before, theprocess was greeted with littleinterest. Many of the Societymembers just could not see theadvantages of xerography.

But, Carlson, Battelle, andHaloid continued to be believers.On the day of the first public intro-duction, Battelle’s staff publica-tion described xerography as a

The Xeroprinterdemonstrated in thelate 1940s by Dr. JohnDessauer (left) Haloid’sresearch chief; ChesterCarlson; and HaloidPresident Joseph C.Wilson. This early xer-ographic device, whichprinted on a roll ofpaper, commandedpublic attention, butwas never marketed asa product.

“word that may eventually be-come an integral part of our lan-guage, rating in significancewith such words as photography,radar, and television.”

In 1949 Haloid introduced itsfirst commercial product, theModel A. It was still a crude ma-chine, unsuited for use as anoffice copier because it required aseries of hand operations three tofour minutes in length before agood single copy was produced.

Fortunately, though, the ModelA had a ready-made market. Slowas it was for office use, it provedsuccessful in making good litho-graphic paper plates.

Arriving in 1955 was Copyflo,the first completely automated

xerographic machine. Thanks tomany mechanical engineering de-velopments, it produced enlargedprints on a continuous roll frommicrofilm originals.

This machine was the first to usea rotating drum, instead of a plate,as the photoconductive surface.The drum solved the problem ofhow to make copies quickly.

Inspired by Copyflo’s successin the market, Haloid changed itsname to Haloid Xerox in 1958. Ayear later, the company also wasready to begin manufacturing thefast, low-cost convenient copierthat had been so long in develop-ment. Yet, one last challengeremained.

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The LastChallenge

T he Haloid Xerox Com-pany, though startingto generate healthyrevenues from its xero-

graphic products, feared it lackedthe financial resources to bringout the office copier model. Thecompany was low on cash becauseit had invested $12.5 million in de-velopment—more than the com-pany’s total earnings from 1950through 1959.

The last challenge was how tofinancially move the product tomarket. Haloid Xerox offered toshare the project with larger com-panies, but once again xerographymet disinterest and rejection.

Forced either to quit or to go forit all, Haloid Xerox chose the lattercourse. It risked all of its assets ona product whose need and advan-tages were foreseen only by onevisionary man, one researchorganization, and one daringcompany.

The result: in 1959 the worldsaw the first fast, low cost, andconvenient office copier. Called the914 copier (since it could copysheets as large as 9 by 14 inches),it proved to be one of the mostsuccessful single products evermarketed.

In 1961, Haloid Xerox changedits named again—this time to theXerox Corporation. And it founditself in the happy position oftrying to keep pace with the vastdemand for its new line. It builthuge research complexes, hiredand trained sales and serviceforces, and tooled up buddingmanufacturing operations.

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A laboratory version of the first commercial xerographic copier.Introduced in 1948, it met with only modest success, but paved the wayfor bigger things.

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At Long Last:Success

For Chester Carlson,xerography’s commer-cial success turned afantasy into a reality.

His early identification of a needand his personal crusade to fillthat need ultimately resulted in animproved flow of communicationand revolutionized an industry.

But the story of xerography isunending for Battelle MemorialInstitute, for the Xerox Corpora-tion, and for the world.

Battelle, the research institutethat likes to tackle difficult prob-lems and find practical solutions,was able to grow and diversifywith earnings from xerography’ssuccess. As a result, today Battelleis the world’s largest independentR&D organization, annually solv-ing research problems for morethan 3,000 companies or govern-ment agencies.

For the Xerox Corporation,xerographic and related productshave enabled the company to growto be a billion dollar corporategiant and leader in the office in-formation industry. In 1980, itproduced its one-millionth xero-graphic copier.

For the world, xerography of-fered a new and better way to makecopies—and the innovations keepcoming. Xerography also provedonce again that success in the cor-porate world comes to those risk-taking individuals and organiza-tions who identify real needs, whodevelop technology bases to fillthose needs, and who nurture theend-product through innovativeand long-term commitments.

Several of the Battelle staff involved with the development of xerogra-phy in 1951.

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An historical montage of xerography: nameplates from various models, pellets of selenium, amachine drum, an early sales brochure, Xerox copiers, the first 914 off the line, and Xerox Presi-dent Joseph C. Wilson (right) with Sales Vice President C. Peter McColough in 1960.

Page 12: Xerography The Developmentof - ASME...he story of xerography is really three stories. One is of a visionary man who recognized a need, then devoted his life to seek-ing technical solutions

The ASME Central Ohio Section The ASME National Xerox Corporationgratefully acknowledges the ef-forts of all who cooperated on the History and Heritagelandmark designation of the de- C. Peter McColough,

velopment of xerography as an In- Committee Chairman of the Boardternational Historic Mechanical David T. Kearns, President,Engineering Landmark, particu- Chief Executive Officer, and

Dr. R. Carson Dalzell, Chairmanlarly the staff at Battelle Memorial Director

Curator Robert M. Vogel, SecretaryInstitute and the Xerox (Smithsonian Institution)Corporation. Dr. Robert B. Gaither

Dr. Richard S. Hartenberg

The American Society Dr. J. Paul Hartman The development of xerographyDr. Edwin T. Layton, Jr. is the fifteenth International

of Mechanical Dr. Merritt Roe Smith Historic Mechanical EngineeringLandmark to be designated since

Engineers The ASME the program began in 1973. Sincethen, sixty-six National and seven

Frank M. Scott, President Central Ohio Regional Landmarks have been

Bluford Moor, Jr., Vice President, Sectionrecognized by the Society. Eachrepresents a progressive step in

Region V the evolution of mechanicalCharles F. Hufler, Chairman,

History & Heritage, Region VCharles E. Moore, Chairman engineering and each reflects its

Paul F. Allmendinger, Donald R. Miller influence on society.

Executive Director Date E. Hampshire The Landmarks program illu-

Arthur W. Ebeling, Jan B. Yates minates our technological heri-James J. Buckenberger, tage and serves to encourage the

Field Service Director History & Heritage preservation of physical re-William Cantieri mains of historically important

works. It provides an annotated

Battelleroster for engineers, students,educators, historians and travel-

Memorial ers, and helps establish persistentreminders of where we have been,

Institute where we are, and where we aregoing along the divergent paths ofdiscovery.

Dr. Sherwood L. Fawcett,Chairman andChief Executive Officer

Dr. Ronald S. Paul, President andChief Operating Officer

Dr. Edward W. Ungar,Vice President and Director,Battelle’s Columbus Division

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