Profile America: The First of Billions of Copies

Saturday, October 22 — . “10 – 22 – 38 Astoria.” That cryptic sequence indicating date and place was the very first photocopied image, created on this date in 1938 in Astoria, New York. A man named Chester Carlson developed a method of making dry copies of documents on plain paper, known as xerography — which we take for granted in using photocopiers today. Before his invention, copies were made either by using carbon paper when typing or by a mimeograph machine for large numbers of copies. The first commercial copiers became available in 1959. Now, 78 years to the day after the first photocopy, making copiers is a nearly $1.7 billion a year business in the U.S.

You can find more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau online.

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