The secretary that invented this product was, by many accounts, a bad typist but an extraordinary entrepreneur. Bette Nesmith Graham Liquid Paper Inventor As electric typewriters came into widespread use after World War II, Bette Nesmith Graham and countless other secretaries let out a collective groan. utmName, Well send you tons of inspiration to help you find a hidden gem in your local area or plan a big day out. After the first season of the greatest sci-fi show of all time, Roddenberry realized he needed a young, mop-top character to lure more teenagers. Without a doubt, his technique worked beyond her belief. Bette Nesmith Graham dropped out to marry Warren Audrey Nesmith, her childhood sweetheart and a soldier when it comes to family life. It was a profession that used to be a reliable path to the middle class, by Heather Long in the Washington Post last year. The main cookie for tracking visitors. This cookie is set by Linkedin. Soon, an idea struck. She was also the mother of musician and producer Michael Nesmith of The Monkees. Identifies unique web browsers visiting Microsoft sites. The invention of the new typewriting machines gave someone a chance to type with extreme speed. I often wonder what Bette would make of todays corporations, particularly in this time of a global pandemic. When the other secretaries realized how well the invention worked, they flooded Graham with requests for their own supplies. She was . There was also a program that reimbursed 75% of tuition or fees that any employees spent on continuing education. Jack Nicholson and directorBob Rafelson were the brains behind the postmodern high jinks. Good Times! Bette Nesmith Graham Entrepreneur #83111 Most Popular Boost Birthday March 23, 1924 Birthplace Dallas , TX DEATH DATE May 12, 1980 ( age 56 ) Birth Sign Aries About Inventor of Liquid Paper who gave countless students a quick way to correct writing mistakes. Anyone using the information provided by Kidadl does so at their own risk and we can not accept liability if things go wrong. The son, Michael Nesmith, would find fame as a member of the rock band the Monkees. Despite increasing health issues, Bette Graham managed to wrest back control of the company and in 1979, Liquid Paper was sold to Gillette for $47.5 million and Bette's royalty rights were restored.
} setHiddenFieldValueFromUtm(wrappingDiv, sp, 'funnel-s2', 's2', ''); Working as a typist, she used to make many mistakes and always strove for a way to correct them. Connects multiple page views by a user into a single Clarity session recording. The plant had equipment that could produce 500 bottles a minute. Every evening she returned home from work to tinker with the formula, write letters to potential buyers and send samples. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. Bette Nesmith Graham was born on 23 March 1924 in Corpus Christi, Texas, USA. Provided by Google Tag Manager to experiment advertisement efficiency of websites using their services. She attracted significant clients such as General Electric and IBM and continued to expand her business rapidly. function initForm() { In 1979, she sold her company for $47 million to the Gillette Corporation.Her son Michael Nesmith is a popular musician and producer. Her father, Jesse McMurray, worked at an automotive parts store. captchaApiScriptEl.defer = true; But when she stepped down as chairperson, her ex-husband Robert Graham took over and she found herself on the losing end of a power struggle. Set to determine if a user is included in the data sampling defined by the website limit. if ((existingVal == null || existingVal == '' || existingVal == defaultValue) && (newVal != null && newVal != '')) { Facts About Bette Nesmith Graham. var v3RecaptchaResponseEl = document.getElementById('recaptcha-response-v3'); Nesmith went off to World War II and while he was away, she had their only son, Michael Nesmith (later of The Monkees fame). Money does not solve problems.

Your submission failed. More than400 young actors and musicians auditioned for the four roles. The _ga cookie, installed by Google Analytics, calculates visitor, session and campaign data and also keeps track of site usage for the site's analytics report. In 1962, Graham married a frozen-food salesman, Robert Graham, who took an increasingly active role in the company, including a seat on the board. atob(decodeURIComponent(b.pop())) : ''; LPC established an employee-owned credit union and a retirement program that contributed 15% into the fund, where the employee could contribute up to an additional 15% of their pre-tax earnings. Browser Identifier cookie to uniquely identify devices accessing LinkedIn to detect abuse on the platform. Please note: prices are correct and items are available at the time the article was published. On a warm Texas night in 1956, Bette Nesmith later known as Bette Nesmith Graham sat in a garage surrounded by buckets of white tempera paint, empty nail polish bottles, and handmade labels. surrounding Happy Days than the potential casting of Arthur Fonzarelli. [5] As part of its effort to acknowledge prominent people who had been previously overlooked, in 2018 The New York Times published a belated obituary for her.[6]. Robert Swenson. Bette is originated from United States. el.setAttribute('value', newVal); A random, unique, device identifier, stored as a 1st party cookie, to enable targeted advertising, This cookie is set by LiveIntent. 100% free. Bette Nesmith Graham was an exceptional inventor. Liquid Paper Corporations' Statement of Policy. Shortly before her death, Graham sat down for an oral history interview at the University of North Texas and ruminated on her success. Her invention continues to be used everyday by secretaries and other people in the office and wherever typewriters are used. Sets a unique ID for the visitor that allows third-party advertisers to target the visitor with relevant advertisements. Bette Nesmith Graham. As her health began to fail, Graham sold Liquid Paper to the Gillette Company, known mostly for selling razors, in September 1979 for $47.5 million (or more than $201 million in modern dollars). She could see women who were at the highest places as executive assistants, but they didnt have decision making power. Which seems odd, seeing how he was a native of England. var b = document.cookie.match('(^|[^;]+)\\s*' + a + '\\s*=\\s*([^;]+)'); Your privacy is important to us. Please try again! When they took a pass, she decided to market it herself. 2023, Hustle Con Media, Inc., All Rights Reserved. In an employee newsletter published after her death, she is quoted as saying The true value in business is never the dollar, but in the benefit that it brings to humankind. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. It might be defined as one of the simplest discoveries on earth, but it carried a huge investment as time passed. From the start, Graham ran her company with a unique combination of spirituality, egalitarianism, and pragmatism. She continued to refine her recipe in her kitchen laboratory, which was based on a formula for tempura paint she found at the local library, with assistance from a paint company employee and a chemistry teacher at a local school. } Please try again!

As chronicled by Forbes contributor Tanya Tarr, Graham left behind much more than a fortune. var captchaApiScriptEl = document.createElement('script'); After a while, Bette opted to part ways with her husband after the end of WWII. It contains an opaque GUID to represent the current visitor. In the mid-70s, well before Zappos adopted a holocracy model, Bette was innovating with organizational structure. 58. Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Bette Nesmith Graham has received more than 637,807 page views. Starting as a secretary, she found a way to solve typos for millions of people and grew a visionary corporation around it. It was at this time that Graham and her colleagues at the bank began experiencing trouble with the new IBM electric typewriters. At each step along the way, she expanded the business, moving her production out of her kitchen into her backyard, then into a four-room house. In 1956, Bette Nesmith Graham (mother of future The Monkees guitarist Michael Nesmith) invented the first correction fluid in her kitchen. 40. She used this to surreptitiously correct her typing mistakes, which her boss never noticed. Any information you provide to us via this website may be placed by us on servers located in countries outside the EU if you do not agree to such placement, do not provide the information. effectively the mission statement written by their founder, Bette Graham, in 1968. In November, a verified but fake Eli Lilly and Co. account announced that the drugmakers insulin was free. The numbers tell that story of measured growth, too. From Rolling Stone: His life changed forever in 1980 when. Bette Nesmith put some tempera water-based paint, colored to match the stationery she used, into a bottle and took her watercolor brush to the office. This cookie is set by Hotjar.
Ensures data from subsequent visits to the same site are attributed to the same user ID. The plant, as Graham would put it, is still going strong. setHiddenFieldValueFromUtm(wrappingDiv, sp, 'funnel-r', 'r', ''); This pairing service is provided by third-party advertisement hubs, which facilitates real-time bidding for advertisers. This included positions in management and sales, not just operations. By 1967, Liquid Paper was a million-dollar enterprise. As the product spread in popularity, Graham relocated the operation from her garage to a trailer to an office building. Most easily identified by his trademark blue wool hat with pompom, Nesmith fashioned a diversified career within music and also in film. In 1976, they divorced and he tried to cut Graham out of the company by changing the formula and booting her off the board. Used to store interaction and conversion data for campaigns in conjunction with Revenue Attribution. She has a sister named Yvonne as well. But in 1954, Graham was a divorced single mother supporting herself and her son from paycheck to paycheck, earning $300 a month (about $2,800 in todays money) as a secretary for a Texas bank. But as her operation took off, the people closest to her tried to take advantage of her success. Bette Graham, inventor, entrepreneur, and philanthropist, was born in San Antonio, Texas, in 1924. We recommend that these ideas are used as inspiration, that ideas are undertaken with appropriate adult supervision, and that each adult uses their own discretion and knowledge of their children to consider the safety and suitability. Can you recognize these stars on the cover of TV Guide in 1970? This cookie is set by Hotjar. She didnt know it then, but she was on the brink of something magical. Six of them. Bette Nesmith left her typing job at the bank in 1958 when Mistake Out finally began to succeed: her product was featured in office supply magazines, she had a meeting with IBM, and General Electric placed an order for 500 bottles. She established two foundations, the Gihon Foundation, which gave grants and financial support to promote women in the. Bette was strongly against growing fast on other peoples money, as she said in that same 1977 speech. Read further to know more about her early and later success. captchaVersion.value = 'true'; Bettes decent life and humble background made her not to step a foot in high school. Afterward, she came to accept that her invention would come to help the world and beyond. There is little to glean information about her death. After her death, a share of her fortune went to the Gihon Foundation, which she founded in 1978 and is dedicated to researching global issues, and the Betty Clair McMurray Foundation, which supports women's projects. Facing ailing health in 1979, she sold Liquid Paper to Gillette for $47.5m ($173m today), plus royalties on every bottle sold for the next 2 decades. The refined product was renamed "Liquid Paper" in 1958 and, amid soaring demand, Graham applied for a patent and a trademark that same year. This is what gave her a chance to be appointed at the Texas Bank and Trust as an executive secretary in 1951. The supply chain, a major headache during the pandemic economy, is in much better shape. } Graham, Bette Clair McMurray (1924-1980). This cookie is set by Linkedin. This included positions in management and sales, not just operations. After living with her husband for some time, she opted to look for a part-time job. Born in 1924 in Dallas, Texas, Bette Graham dropped out of high school at the age of seventeen and went to secretarial school.
Subscribe for virtual tools, STEM-inspired play, creative tips and more. The day she came up with the idea for Liquid Paper, she used the blender in her kitchen to mix up the first. Grahams impact on her revolutionary invention, Liquid Paper shows its relevance through its longevity of use to even today. Anyone in the organization no matter their role could be appointed and included in committees that made decisions for the whole organization. Graham's Liquid Paper Company experienced tremendous growth over the next decade. Today, Liquid Paper is still in production and is owned by Newell Brands a conglomerate that owns Rubbermaid, Sharpie, and Elmers glue. For a variety of reasons - technology changes, increased access to education or better professional opportunities - the profession is on the decline. Her name was Bette Nesmith later Bette Nesmith Graham a single mom who, in 1956, tried to find a simple way to make her life at work easier. In 1962, she married Robert Graham, a frozen-food salesman who then took an increasingly active role in the organization. Today's Texas Birthdays. Graham was one of the few who got devastated when spending too much time in editing than typing. She also liked spending some time with her son. At 19 years of age, she got married to Warren Nesmith. However, this didnt hinder her from achieving her best in life. University of North Texas Libraries Special Collection, These remarkable employee benefits were further memorialized in the 1980. , about three secretaries that took over their company. More interesting Facts Bette Nesmith Graham Worked as a bank secretary Later she rose to the executive secretary Some bosses admonished her from using it. The product took a few different forms, but was some variation of small bottle or pen with the signature correction fluid. For more information, check out our .

defaultValue This is one the few tricks that she came to employ when she was working as a secretary. She hired a staff of employees to help out with marketing, production, and logistics. Long before the delete key, typing and correspondence was a vital portion of the work, first with mechanical typewriters and then electronic ones. setHiddenFieldValueFromUtm(wrappingDiv, sp, 'funnel-f', 'f', ''); Colorados One sports drink is so in demand that teens are charging each other to pose with empty bottles. During that time, I often became discouraged, she told the magazine Texas Woman in 1979. "She was a. Here are a handful of fun facts to celebrate half a century of the Monkees. Set to determine if a user is included in the data sampling defined by your site's daily session limit. Don't worry, the other two had good excuses. Born Bette Clair McMurray in Dallas in March 1924, she grew up in San Antonio. But for decades, being part of a secretarial pool was an important employment option for millions of women. hp_ts = 0; Bellis, Mary. Soon another secretary saw the new invention and asked for some of the correcting fluid. In 1979, she sold her company to the Gillette Corporation for $47.5 million. By 1977, the corporation was shipping tens of millions of units. captchaVersion.type = 'hidden'; if(name == cookiePair[0].trim()) { Graham was sacked in 1960 after unintentionally signing a bank letter with the name of her private company. From its fruition in 1956, Grahams invention is now in virtually every office desk and supply cabinet around the world. To add insult to injury, they tried to change the very formula for Liquid Paper, thus removing her right to royalties from it. The quick-thinking Graham mimicked their technique by using a white, water-based tempera paint to cover her typing errors. Divorced and with a small child to support, Bette took several odd jobs, eventually learning shorthand and typing. if(hp_ts >= 180) { These cookies are used for advertising, site analytics, and other operational purposes. Hey, hey! Slowly, he became more involved in the business and attempted to take power away from her, prompting her to file for a second divorce in 1975. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that in 2018, secretaries and administrative professionals account for some. var existingVal = el.getAttribute('value'); https://www.thoughtco.com/liquid-paper-bette-nesmith-graham-1992092 (accessed March 4, 2023).
We're committed to your privacy. function getCookie(name) { National Administrative Professionals Day. She built the company with no cash, and just supported us with her secretary job for years. This cookie keeps track of a visitor's identity. Bowie was born David Robert Jones, and went by Davy Jones in his early, formative rock & roll days. She and her husband divorced after World War II, leaving . Persists the Hotjar User ID which is unique to that site. The transatlantic foursome ofMicky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith, Peter Tork and Davy Jones wrote and recorded a surprising range of music, from beat pop to country and psychedelic. Business and tech news in 5 minutes or less. They divorced in 1946. if (el != null) { Currently, Bette Nesmith Graham is 98 years, 1 months and 24 days old. Bette Graham was now wealthy, with fabulous jewelry and a Rolls-Royce. Starting on a basis of tempera paint she mixed with a common kitchen blender, she called the fluid "Mistake Out" and started to provide her co-workers with . These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. But for decades, being part of a secretarial pool was an important employment option for millions of women. Clarity doesn't use ANID and so this is always set to 0. Used to store consent of guests regarding the use of cookies for non-essential purposes. initForm(); Our lab is working on a faster drying solution, Graham wrote to one customer (the lab being her kitchen and her blender). Bette Nesmith Graham believed money to be a tool, not a solution to a problem. Liquid Paper numbers weren't available to Graham, but most of those uses could apply to it as well. All of this growth happened without any outside investment. With no background in chemical engineering, but guided by her side hustle of painting and graphic design, Bette Graham created the first correctional paint to fix document typos. In the mid-70s, well before Zappos adopted a. , Bette was innovating with organizational structure. Contrary to urban legend, Charles Manson did not audition. By 1951, she had risen to the post of becoming an executive secretary, the top position available to ladies in the company at the time.After reworking and improving her invention, Bette Nesmith Graham invented liquid paper in December of 1951.Graham kept her white correction paint hidden for five years, improving it with the help of her son's chemistry instructor at Dallas' Thomas Jefferson High School.She started marketing her correction solution for the typewriter, Mistake Out, in the year 1956.She started the Liquid Paper Company in 1958. They include The Gihon Foundation, womens scholarships, and counseling. Davy Jones had to be written out of an episode so he could attend his sister's wedding. Your submission failed. Comment: Dolenz was deemed to be too tall, towering over his costars. In 1956, Bette Nesmith started the Mistake Out Company: her son Michael and his friends filled bottles for her customers. Bette was passionate about painting and sculpting, if not particularly skilled. The Kidadl Team is made up of people from different walks of life, from different families and backgrounds, each with unique experiences and nuggets of wisdom to share with you. Do Not Sell My Information - CA Residents. In 1994, Jeff Bezos discovered a shocking stat: Internet usage grew 2,300% per year. Nicholson purportedly hammered out the screenplay on acid. [email-submission-form button-text="Join Free" include-trends-opt-in="true" success-url="https://thehustle.co/new-thank-you-v2/" default-source="thehustleco" default-medium="home-exit-popup" default-campaign="home-page" form-id="exit-popup-general" optinmonster-conversion="true"],