The interesting invention story of our humble correction fluid or whitener
You must have seen a whitener or a correction fluid during one of your visits to a stationery shop. Though not in regular use in the digital era, when mistakes can be deleted at the click of a button, there was a point of time when this white opaque fluid was an essential for covering errors. Our humble whiteners have an interesting invention story though, thanks to Bette Nesmith Graham (born Bette Claire McMurray) of Texas. She created the correction fluid (then known as ‘liquid paper’) in 1956.
Plight of a typist leads to the invention
You might know from movies and TV shows that the life of secretaries can be pretty hard. Secretaries in the 1950s spent hours typing letters and messages for employers. And even a small error would ruin hours of hard work! Graham was working as a typist in a bank. She herself had to rewrite every letter/ memo even if a single error occurred. As she kept on looking for a solution, an idea struck her, that of using a paint to cover mistakes. But where did she get the idea from? Once she saw workers painting a bank window with a holiday poster. Graham noticed that they were using many coats of paint to cover up their errors. She thought that she could use that idea too for correcting her typing mistakes. So, to experiment with her idea, Graham combined water-based tempera paint with dye in her blender. She carried it to work and immediately fixed her mistakes with a delicate paintbrush. When another secretary saw this, she requested for some of the correction fluid for herself. Graham brought her friend a bottle of her invention with the words ‘Mistake Out’. Soon, it became popular with every typist in the building.
Graham patents her invention
With help from a paint industry employee and a chemistry teacher nearby, Graham continued to perfect her formula in her kitchen laboratory. Eventually, she founded the ‘Mistake Out’ company in 1956, and the first employees were her son Michael and a few friends who helped fill bottles for her clients. And with continued success, Graham eventually quit her typing job in 1958. She then changed the company’s name to the ‘Liquid Paper Company’ and filed for a patent. She had put all her energy into the firm, boosting production from 500 bottles per week to 10,000 bottles per day in 1968! In 1979, Graham sold the business to Gillette Corporation for about $48 million. With the money, she founded the Betty Claire McMurray Foundation in 1976 and the Gihon Foundation in 1978. These foundations supported women’s art and business efforts. Graham passed away in 1980 and left behind millions.
Graham’s whitener and MTV: What’s the connect?
In the meantime, Michael had became a pop star and a television star with ‘Monkees’, an American pop band formed in 1966 in Los Angeles, USA. He created a song named Rio which was made into a video in 1977. After it became a huge hit, Michael started his own label, which released films, audio recordings and albums. He created a music video programme called PopClips for Nickelodeon, a youth-centric American TV channel. The success of PopClips ultimately led to the creation of the format that became Music Television- MTV network on 1st August 1981 in New York.