THE HISTORY OF THE MIMEOGRAPH
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In March 2021, a full year after the first Covid shutdowns, Mark, the Museum Director, and one of our presses got to venture out of Southern California. Mark traveled across the country with our 5000 lb Grasshopper press in tow to do a film shoot for an upcoming tv show. The rest of the Museum staff were in for a treat upon Mark’s return– he had found a number of printing treasures on the East Coast that he brought back with him. The largest of these was a Philadelphia Press, which you can read about here. And one of the smaller items was a very rare No. 1 Edison Mimeograph, one of the earliest duplicators.
This first mimeograph was created by Thomas Edison and the A.B. Dick Company.
Edison was one of America’s most famous inventors, best known for his work with lightbulbs, phonographs, telephones, and other electrical innovations that shaped the modern world. Among his many inventions, Edison also played a role in creating the first duplicator. Edison was something of a patent fiend– during his lifetime he acquired over a thousand patents for his inventions. His patents that became noteworthy to the printing industry included “autographic printing” with an electric pen and flatbed press and “autographic stencils.” Nothing much came of these patents however until the Chicago based A.B. Dick Company took an interest in the technology in the mid-1880s.
A.B. Dick got its name from its founder Albert Blake Dick, who started the business in 1883 as a lumber company. Within the next ten years, the A.B Dick Company transformed into a major manufacturer of printing equipment. Dick designed his own version of the electric pen and stencil and reached out to Edison, who controlled the patents for the technology. The two established a working relationship as they began to design the first stencil duplicator. The result was the Edison Mimeograph.
Our No. 1 Edison Mimeograph is packaged in a wooden box that still contains all the chemicals and tools needed to produce a stencil. It even has an old stencil that may have been by its previous owner. Inside the lid of the box are instructions on how to use it and a price list for other models of mimeographs (Our No. 1 model cost $15 back in the 1890s, which is equivalent to $500 today).
THE CONTENTS OF OUR EDISON MIMEOGRAPH:
Here at the Museum, we also have a number of later models of mimeographs. They evolved dramatically from a handmade stencil in a box to a flatbed press to a rotary style machine. Each iteration of the mimeograph improved it slightly. The flatbed model replaced the free-floating screen and brayer from the earliest models. The rotary mimeograph could automatically apply ink and produce prints by turning a hand crank. The machines shown below are examples of the rotary iteration of the mimeograph.
AB Dick Mimeograph Model 77
AB Dick Mimeograph Model 78
Nowadays, the mimeograph is best known as a low budget duplicator that was popular in schools before xerox machines and digital technology became widespread. It was an affordable alternative to professional printing and much faster than typing each copy of a page. The mimeograph also became popular with DIY publishers who wanted to cheaply produce booklets, zines, and other materials that they could distribute without being inhibited by the constraints of traditional media.
