In 1938, a patent clerk rubbed sulfur onto a metal plate and copied a few words in a borrowed lab: It led to the foundation of xerography

In 1938, Chester Carlson was in an improvised lab in Astoria, Queens, trying to coat a zinc plate with sulfur while doing something that had challenged office staff members for decades: reproducing documents quickly without retyping. Carlson did not have a state-of-the-art corporate lab or a robust scientific research facility; he was a patent clerk familiar with piles of papers, duplicated forms, and inefficient manual copying processes prevalent in offices before photocopiers became common. According to Library of Congress records, duplicating in the early 1900s was still a laborious process that involved carbon paper, handwriting, or mimeograph machines.

Carlson sought a system by which clean copies could be created rapidly using light, electricity, and dry substances rather than chemicals. It was on October 22, 1938, that he, together with his assistant Otto Kornei, was able to transfer the words "10-22-38 Astoria" from a negatively charged plate coated with sulfur onto waxed paper. As described by the Smithsonian Institution, this experiment was the first successful attempt that demonstrated the principles of electrophotography, also known as xerography. The very fact that this environment was the site of the first attempt of its kind helped turn it into a legend, as the first successful copy seemed barely impressive.

Carlson’s idea mattered because offices were drowning in paperwork

The invention of xerography came after copying had become relatively time-consuming, so much so that it affected how organizations structured their documentation processes. Clerks used to retype documents many times, and larger duplication machines required specialized handling and technology. Carlson focused on inventing electrophotography between 1934 and 1938, by which time he had already recognized the need to address document reproduction issues that had become critical due to growing documentation needs in business organizations, as noted in the Justice Department review. The most revolutionary aspect of this invention was that he knew how to use light and electrical charges to produce images without the use of photographic liquids.


Another review paper published in PubMed Central describes how the technology Carlson used for the electrophotographic technique eventually progressed from simply copying documents to imaging systems used in medicine and other sciences, which indicated that this technology had many potential applications beyond duplicating documents in an office setting. This point can be easily overlooked because the term xerography is primarily associated with photocopiers; nonetheless, the significance of the technology extended even to imaging science in general. The early days after Carlson's invention were certainly not glorious either, since major corporations declined repeated offers to implement the concept, as they found its application in commerce too vague at the time.

Xerography changed office culture once copying became routine

The involvement of the Battelle Memorial Institute and Haloid Company made the invention practical for commercial exploitation. The patent for Carlson's electrophotography invention was issued much later, in 1942, a few years after the experimental phase of development, as described in the Library of Congress business history database. Later, in 1959, the Haloid Company launched the commercial version of the Xerox 914 copying machine, which reached consumers by 1960. This is very important since, at times, we tend to view inventions as being almost instantaneous discoveries while forgetting that there might be years of development between the two.

However, once copying became easier, the culture of paperwork soon underwent a transformation, as schools gave out handouts liberally, businesses made copies of reports faster, and governments dealt with documents that earlier duplication systems were too slow to accommodate. As reported by the Library of Congress Office of History, the technology slowly normalized duplication from a specialized activity to an everyday one, which was the invention’s most significant cultural impact. Eventually, duplicating machines became so common that no one would ever give a second thought to the technological intricacies involved in creating instantaneous documents. Though the original experimentation conducted by Carlson was quite basic, with sulfur, metal, electricity, and a few words reproduced, the technology spawned from that initial discovery would forever revolutionize paperwork procedures.