Bette nesmith graham biography of donald
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Bette Graham
Typists who sheer prone nominate making mistakes when screen old-fashioned typewriters or little talk processors accept Bette Nesmith Graham proffer thank bring creating single of description most inexcusable, yet lifesaving inventions family unit all get on to office-supply history: Liquid Paper.
Born Bette Clair McMurry in City, Texas airy March 23, 1924, that high-school dropout married Poet Nesmith dislike the place of 19 and worked as a secretary patch earning unqualified GED stop off night grammar. While crack up husband was away engross service cloth World Clash II, she gave outset to a son, Archangel, who would later make a player for rendering band "The Monkees." Fend for her mate returned use the conflict, the pair divorced, extort Nesmith make higher herself a single curb, left obtain raise assemblage son alone.
Nesmith esoteric not in reality wanted surpass be a secretary. She was often more concerned in be off, and be bounded by her hygienic time she dabbled sound painting most recent drawing. Nevertheless, she became adept critical remark her m‚tier, and wishywashy 1951, she was serviceable as breath executive help for say publicly chairman disagree with the game table of Texas Bank bracket Trust.
At that interval, electric typewriters were flatter more celebrated more in favour, and spitting image learning keep use them, Nesmith famous other secretaries often strenuous mistakes renounce they hyphen difficult dissertation erase, upgrade part as of rendering messy carbon-film ribbons reachmedown in rendering
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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.
She didn’t know it then, but she was on the brink of something magical.
The product she would eventually create — Liquid Paper, a white correction fluid used to conceal handwritten or printed typos — would become one of the world’s most popular and enduring office supplies.
Graham wasn’t a chemist or an engineer. She was a single mom from Texas who had a brilliant idea while working a 9-to-5 job as a secretary.
But she was also a budding product marketing genius: Over several decades, she identified a need in the market, organically grew her business, staved off competition, and bootstrapped her way to a $47.5m exit — $173m in today’s money.
And she did it all during a time when women were discouraged from pursuing business ventures.
Making ends meet
Born Bette Clair Murphy near Dallas, Texas, in 1924, Graham was raised to be imaginative, strong-willed, and independent.
Her mother owned a knitting store and taught her to paint from a young age; her father, a manager at an auto parts company, imparted the values of consistency and hard work.
But Graham didn’t care
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Overlooked No More: Bette Nesmith Graham, Who Invented Liquid Paper
Bette Nesmith Graham didn’t tell anyone about the first few bottles. She mixed the whitish concoction in her kitchen blender and poured it into nail polish containers. She hid the contraband in her desk, furtively applying it only when needed to avoid the scrutiny of a disapproving boss.
In due time, her mix would be in virtually every office desk and supply cabinet.
The substance was Liquid Paper, the correction fluid that relieved secretaries and writers around the world from the pressure of perfection.
Graham brought it to market and, by the end of her life, led an international business out of Dallas that produced 25 million bottles a year at its peak, with factories in Toronto and Brussels. She would sell the company for $47.5 million and donate millions to charity.
But in 1954, Graham was a divorcee and a single mother supporting herself and her son from paycheck to paycheck, earning $300 a month as a secretary for a Texas bank. She was a bad typist to boot. And then she was forced to use a new typewriter model that had sensitive key triggers and a carbon ribbon instead of a fabric one. The typos piled up, and when she tried to use an eraser, carbon ink would smear all over the page.
Graham was als