The familiar office request, "Make a Xerox!" wasn't heard much before 1960. That's when the first convenient office copier using xerography—Greek for "dry writing"—was sold by what was then called Haloid Xerox. The copier arrived 22 years after physicist Chester Carlson filed a patent for the process. Laid off by Bell Laboratories during the Depression, he worked briefly for a patent attorney, then became one. On the job, he saw that people were always short of copies of patent specifications. He researched image processing, then worked on photoconductivity tests in his Queens (N.Y.) home. His patent application shows the steps needed to make an electrophotograph, beginning with rubbing the glass with a "cotton or silk handkerchief" to create a static charge.

Related Links
U. Rochester: "The Xerographic Process"