Fast Facts: Bette Nesmith Graham Known For: Invention of the correcting fluid known as Liquid Paper Born: March 23, 1924 in Dallas Texas Parents: Christine Duval and Jesse McMurray Died: May 12, 1980 in Richardson, Texas Education: Left San Antonio's Alamo Heights School at 17 She left school at 17 to become a secretary and married her high school sweetheart, Warren Nesmith, two years later. This cookie is set by Sailthru. [4] Additionally, a portion of Graham's estate financed the Betty Clair McMurray Foundation, which focuses on supporting projects such as the exhibit Texas Women, A Celebration of History, career guidance for unwed mothers, shelter and counseling for battered women, and college scholarships for mature women. Davy Jones had to be written out of an episode so he could attend his sister's wedding. Fun facts: Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides) is not moss, nor fungus, nor lichen, nor from Spain. She formed a multimillion-dollar global company after inventing Liquid Paper. In 1979, she sold her company to the Gillette Corporation for $47.5 million. She didn't know it then, but she was on the brink of something magical. Bette Nesmith Graham was born on 23 March 1924 in Corpus Christi, Texas, USA.
That was intentional. In 1975, Graham moved operations into a 35,000-sq. She is famous because she invented liquid paper. In an employee newsletter published after her death, she is quoted as saying The true value in business is never the dollar, but in the benefit that it brings to humankind. She donated millions to charity after selling her business. In the mid-70s, well before Zappos adopted a holocracy model, Bette was innovating with organizational structure. In the mid-70s, well before Zappos adopted a. , Bette was innovating with organizational structure. For more information, check out our . setHiddenFieldValue(wrappingDiv, sp, 'funnel-medium', 'utm_medium', 'funnel_medium', 'home-exit-popup'); Graham found a green bottle at home, wrote "Mistake Out" on a label, and gave it to her friend. By 1951, she had worked her way up to the position of executive secretary for W.W. Overton, the Chairman of the Board of the Texas Bank and Trust. Starting as a secretary, she found a way to solve typos for millions of people and grew a visionary corporation around it. To meet demand, she turned her garage into a mini packing plant, paying her son and his friends $1/hour to fill the little glass bottles and affix them with handwritten labels. Liquid Paper Corporations' Statement of Policy. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Prior to being bought by Gillette in 1979 for $48.5 million (roughly $190 million in 2020), LPC exported their products to 31 countries and employed some 300 people, according to their internal newsletter. Bette worked for Texas Bank and Trust as a secretary. 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. Bette Nesmith Graham Liquid Paper Inventor As electric typewriters came into widespread use after World War II, Bette Nesmith Graham and countless other secretaries let out a collective groan. [3] A portion financed the Gihon Foundation which established the Council on Ideas, a think tank with a retreat center located north of Santa Fe, New Mexico active from 1990 to 2000 and devoted to exploring world problems. To measure and improve the performance of your advertising campaigns and to personalize the user's experience (including ads) on TikTok. Whenever HubSpot changes the session cookie, this cookie is also set to determine if the visitor has restarted their browser. This cookie is set by Microsoft Advertising. Bette Nesmith Graham is no longer in the world, and hence her annual income can not be ascertained. It was during Bettes days that electric typewriters gained more fame across the world. But when she stepped down as chairperson, her ex-husband Robert Graham took over and she found herself on the losing end of a power struggle. Graham died on May 12, 1980, six months after selling her company. After work one day, she went to the library and looked up a recipe for tempera an age-old, water-based paint. It contains the domain, viewCount (increments each pageView in a session), and session start timestamp. Get the Hustles 5-minute weekday roundup that keeps you hip to happenings in tech, business, and internet things. Every evening she returned home from work to tinker with the formula, write letters to potential buyers and send samples. She took the paint with her to the office which made her work easier than usual. Nesmith married Robert Graham in 1962, and he joined the business as well. She found employment in 1951 as an executive secretary for the Texas Bank & Trust in Dallas. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. Though Graham wasnt a great typist, she eventually rose to the position of executive secretary then the highest job available to the banks female employees. In 1976, the Liquid Paper Corporation turned out 25 million bottles, while the company spent $1 million a year on advertising alone. She enjoys painting. Linkedin sets this cookie. Soon, all the secretaries in the building were asking for some, too. setHiddenFieldValueFromUtm(wrappingDiv, sp, 'funnel-s1', 's1', ''); She left high school to marry a man named Nesmith before World War II. Persists the Hotjar User ID which is unique to that site. Used to store consent of guests regarding the use of cookies for non-essential purposes. On 23rd, March 1924 Bette Nesmith Graham was first seen in the world in Dallas, Texas. Despite increasing health issues, Bette Graham managed to wrest back control of the company and in 1979, Liquid Paper was sold to Gillette for $47.5 million and Bette's royalty rights were restored. Graham was one of the few who got devastated when spending too much time in editing than typing. Nevertheless, she made little money despite working nights and weekends to fill orders. I think she might have gotten a $600 loan from a family member at some point. She was written about in an office supply magazine, had a meeting with I.B.M. She later died shortly after on May 12, 1980 due to complications of a stroke. If you purchase using the buy now button we may earn a small commission. I write about the power of negotiation and adaptive leadership. I remember talking to her accountant, and he looked at me and said, You know, this company should never have existed. She could see women who were at the highest places as executive assistants, but they didnt have decision making power. Her son, Michael who, as chance would have it, went on to achieve fame as a member of the 60s pop group, The Monkees continued to champion his late mothers legacy, appearing in commercials for her products well into the 90s. It was here that she went to work as a secretary in Texas. This included positions in management and sales, not just operations.
With help from her sons chemistry teacher and an employee at a paint shop, she constantly iterated the formula. The musical television series, which would premiere later that year, offered cutting-edge comedy and brilliant pop music. var el = wrappingDiv.getElementsByClassName(className)[0]; The test_cookie is set by doubleclick.net and is used to determine if the user's browser supports cookies. She left her fortune to her son, who took over her foundations that empower striving women. Graham later brought it to market and was soon leading an international business, based in Dallas, that produced 25 million bottles of Liquid Paper a year at its peak, with factories in Toronto and Brussels. Contrary to urban legend, Charles Manson did not audition. In 1994, Jeff Bezos discovered a shocking stat: Internet usage grew 2,300% per year. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads. They had accommodation for differently-abled people, including employees who used wheelchairs and a program for blind employees. Her invention continues to be used everyday by secretaries and other people in the office and wherever typewriters are used. It is used for authentication purposes, to keep the user logged in to their Twitter account. At 17, she dropped out of high school, married a soldier named Warren Nesmith, and had a baby boy. ThoughtCo, Sep. 1, 2021, thoughtco.com/liquid-paper-bette-nesmith-graham-1992092. I wanted the product to be absolutely perfect before I distributed it, and it seemed to take so long for that to happen.. Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. In Wyoming, Alterras Jackson Hole has sold out of day passes. Used to detect whether a user is logged into Twitter. Sad news: Michael Nesmith of The Monkees, who went on to have a successful career in music and film died today at 78 of natural causes. The great throwback album also included aposthumous contribution from Jones on a Neil Diamond written tune, "Love To Love," which was cut in 1967 and originally intended for the Headquarters album. Then, just a few months later, Bette Nesmith Graham suffered a stroke and died at 59 years old. Share. Kidadl has a number of affiliate partners that we work with including Amazon. Without a doubt, his technique worked beyond her belief. Good Times! Building a company of this magnitude alone would have been remarkable, but Nesmith shared with me a conversation he had with Bettes staff after she passed away in 1980. Click here for more Fun Facts! When the other secretaries realized how well the invention worked, they flooded Graham with requests for their own supplies. 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. Please note that Kidadl is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon. That year, Bette Nesmith Graham sold one million bottles. }); Over the next twenty five years, Bette and others grew the small start-up through traditional sales to distributors and promotion within the office product industry. By 1967, Liquid Paper was a million-dollar enterprise. } It contains the domain, utk, initial timestamp (first visit), last timestamp (last visit), current timestamp (this visit), and session number (increments for each subsequent session). Graham became so devoted to her venture that she accidentally signed a letter at her job with the notation The Mistake Out Company. She was promptly fired, giving her a chance to become a full-time small business owner in 1958. Remember when the Biden admin tackled the $1.6T student debt problem by canceling $400B of it? In 1962, she married Robert Graham, a frozen-food salesman who then took an increasingly active role in the organization. LPC had arrived as a global product that enjoyed nearly all of its market share. It is, in fact, native to North America and related to pineapples. (2021, September 1). Anyone in the organization no matter their role could be appointed and included in committees that made decisions for the whole organization. Mini Bio (1) Singer, composer, heartthrob, pioneer--all are accurate descriptions of Robert Michael Nesmith. subForm.appendChild(captchaVersion); She built the company with no cash, and just supported us with her secretary job for years. Bette created a corporate culture that fully embraced diversity, inclusion and belonging, and she showed us that it could be extremely profitable to do so. More interesting Facts Bette Nesmith Graham Worked as a bank secretary Later she rose to the executive secretary Some bosses admonished her from using it. For a variety of reasons - technology changes, increased access to education or better professional opportunities - the profession is on. Born Bette Clair McMurray in Dallas in March 1924, she grew up in San Antonio. When I started Liquid Paper Corporation, I had a deep desire to build a company based on ethical values a commitment to serve the interests of our customers above all and to encourage the cultural, educational and spiritual development of our employees, Bette said. The Kidadl Team is made up of people from different walks of life, from different families and backgrounds, each with unique experiences and nuggets of wisdom to share with you. Bette was 56 years old when she died in 1980 in Richardson, Texas. A single inspiration led Graham to invent the typing correction fluid she came to call Liquid Paper. Anyone using the information provided by Kidadl does so at their own risk and we can not accept liability if things go wrong. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. var existingVal = el.getAttribute('value'); } At the time, IBM had just come out with a new line of electric typewriters that were faster than previous models and used carbon film ribbons. Graham spent heavily on advertising, showcasing her product during prime-time TV programs like The Tonight Show and in Glamour and Fortune magazine spreads.
, The secretary who turned Liquid Paper into a multimillion-dollar business, A woman is suing Jack Daniels over whiskey fungus, Some personal news: LinkedIn is cringe AF, Eli Lilly cuts insulin costs for real, this time, The student loan forgiveness hearing, explained, Kids cant get enough of this influencer sports drink, The supply chain is fine, but inflation is not. The product took a few different forms, but was some variation of small bottle or pen with the signature correction fluid. }); error.innerHTML = error_message; They would have one son in December 1942, Robert Michael Nesmith. 100% free. It is a tool, she said. Bette Claire McMurray was born on March 23, 1924 in Dallas, Texas, the daughter of Christine Duval and Jesse McMurray. We try our very best, but cannot guarantee perfection. A racially integrated staff that recognized affirmative action policies. That secretary was Elizabeth Clair McMurray Nesmith Graham, the inventor of Liquid Paper and founder and CEO of the Liquid Paper Corporation. Please try again"; Subscribe for virtual tools, STEM-inspired play, creative tips and more. LPC had arranged for Liquid Paper to have product placement in the movie and also suggested that they mention these employee programs in the movie to promote better business practice. } The plant, as Graham would put it, is still going strong. That technological shift (and the ensuing increase in typographical errors) became a source of inspiration for a new product in the 1950s. setHiddenFieldValueFromUtm(wrappingDiv, sp, 'funnel-e', 'e', ''); Biography of Bette Nesmith Graham, Inventor of Liquid Paper. 