Photocopy machines. So important, but you know, we might never have had them if it were not for one man. His name? Chester Carlson. He invented the copy machine.
But here is the surprising part. We didn't get copy machines until the 1970's, but he invented this machine in the 1930's. Why did it take so long for us to get these machines? Well, maybe because it was so high tech at the time, no one wanted it. He took his invention from company to company for many years. They all turned him down. He went to IBM, Eastman Kodak, GE, RCA, all the high tech companies of the 1940's, and they all said "no." They just couldn't understand how this kind of machine would be useful. It took Chester Carlson 25 years to show the world how useful a photocopy machine would be. He went for 25 years to try to get it made, and it's a good thing he was a kind of guy who never gave up because once he showed us how important this machine would be, he changed the world.
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