Chester Carlson and his Xerox Machine
                     CHESTER CARLSON AND 
HIS XEROX MACHINE
INTRODUCTION
The American inventor Chester F. Carlson (1906-1968) 
invented the process of xerography which became the 
basis for the operation of the office copying machines 
first introduced by the Xerox Corporation in 1959.
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BIRTH
Chester Floyd Carlson was born on February 8, 1906, in 
Seattle, Washington. Illness and poverty in his family 
forced him to become his parent's main financial 
support while he was in his teens. Despite these 
responsibilities and handicaps.
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EDUCATION
Carlson worked his way through college, graduating 
with a Bachelor of Science degree in physics from 
California Institute of Technology in 1930.
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CAREER
After trying in vain to gain employment as a physicist 
in California he left for New York City, where the P. R. 
Mallory Company, an electrical manufacturing firm, 
offered him a position in its patent department. This 
job proved to be of crucial importance to Carlson's 
career as an inventor in two ways.
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RESEARCH ON A 
DUPLICATION PROCESS
While working at Mallory, Carlson attended New York 
Law School at night, receiving his law degree in 1939. 
One year later he was admitted to the New York bar. 
At the same time he conducted research on a 
duplication process that would produce clean copies 
quickly without using the chemical solutions, film, and 
printing paper necessary for photographic 
reproduction.
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ELECTROPHOTOGRAPHY
Carlson began his search for an alternative process by 
reading the available literature on printing, 
photography, and various copying technologies. 
His study convinced him that in some yet unspecified 
manner it might be possible to duplicate documents by 
making use of photoconductivity. He decided that wet-
process photography must be replaced by the dry 
techniques of what he called "electrophotography."
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LABORATORY
Using the little amount of money he possessed, 
Carlson bought chemicals and equipment and turned 
his New York apartment into a laboratory (1934). 
Unable to devote full time to this work, Carlson hired 
an unemployed German physicist and engineer named 
Otto Kornei to help him.
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FIRST 
ELECTROPHOTOGRAPHI
C COPY
Carlson and Kornei, limited to a research budget of 
$10.00 a month, were able in October 1938 to make 
the first electrophotographic copy. It read simply "10-
22-38 Astoria."
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RESEARCH
This copy was produced by a primitive, but innovative, 
method that formed the foundation for Carlson's 
subsequent research and for the industry that grew out 
of it. First, a rabbit's fur or cotton cloth was rubbed 
vigorously over the surface of a metal plate coated 
with a layer of sulfur. 
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LATER LIFE
As xerography became a complex technical and 
business venture Carlson withdrew from active 
involvement with it, except for serving as a consultant 
to the Xerox Corporation. 
By 1945 his invention brought him sufficient financial 
security so that he could retire from Mallory. Royalties 
from his xerography patents made Carlson a multi-
millionaire, and in later life he engaged in many 
philanthropic endeavors.
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