Chester Carlson

Chester Floyd Carlson was an American physicist and patent attorney who invented electrophotography, later renamed xerography, the dry copying process underlying the modern photocopier. On October 22, 1938, working with assistant Otto Kornei in a makeshift laboratory, he produced the first xerographic copy using a zinc plate coated with sulfur, and the United States Patent Office granted his foundational patent in October 1942. After years of failed attempts to interest established companies, he partnered with the nonprofit Battelle Memorial Institute in 1945 and then the Haloid Company in 1946, which eventually became Xerox Corporation; its Xerox 914 copier, introduced in September 1959, was a commercial sensation that nearly doubled the company's revenue within two years. Carlson was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1981, and the United States government designated October 22, 1988, as National Chester F. Carlson Recognition Day. He donated more than 150 million dollars to charity before his death in 1968.