Liquid Paper — The Invention that Corrected Mistakes

Liquid Paper is the magical stuff that can cover mistakes, but if it weren’t for one woman and her difficulty using an electric typewriter, it might never have been invented.

In 1951, Bette Nesmith Graham, the inventor of Liquid paper, was a single mother with one young son who worked as an executive secretary at Texas Bank & Trust in Dallas, Texas. Problems arose for her as a secretary when the bank switched from mechanical typewriters to electric ones. Nesmith found that she had difficulty correcting her mistakes on the new machines as the new type of ink from the ribbons didn’t erase well. She came up with an idea to paint over her mistakes instead.

She mixed a water-based, white tempera paint (which is a fast-drying painting medium) at home and used a brush to paint over her mistakes at the office. She discovered that when the paint dried, she could type over it. Other secretaries got wind of Graham’s concoction and began asking her for some of their own. She began to share the corrective paint and named it Mistake Out.

At this point, Graham must have realized she had something special because she began to refine her mixture in her kitchen using a blender. In 1956, she sold her first real bottle of Mistake Out. She next enlisted the help of a chemistry teacher, a paint manufacturing employee, and an…