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The secretary who made millions from her typos
In the 1950s, secretary Bette Graham from Texas was struggling to cope with her new electric typewriter.
“My fingers would hang heavy on the sensitive keyboard and the first thing I'd know, I'd have a mistake with a deposit of carbon which I simply couldn't erase,” she said.
A budding artist, she wondered if there was a way she could paint over her typos.
At home, in her kitchen, the single mum cooked up the first correcting fluid. It was a hit with other secretaries and, by 1973, Bette had turned her creation into a multi-million dollar business.
Bette died in 1980 so Vicky Farncombe tells her story using archive from University of North Texas Special Collections.
Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there.
For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more.
Recent episodes explore everything from the death of Adolf Hitler, the first spacewalk and the making of the movie Jaws, to celebrity tortoise Lonesome George, the Kobe earthquake and the invention of superglue.
We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: Eva Peron – Argentina’s Evita; President Ronald Reagan and his famous ‘tear down this wall’ speech; Thomas Keneally on why he wrote Schindler’s List; and Jacques Derrida, France’s ‘rock star’ philosopher.
You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the civil rights swimming protest; the disastrous D-Day rehearsal; and the death of one of the world’s oldest languages.
(Photo: Correction fluid. Credit: Getty Images)
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By In the 1950s, secretary Bette Graham from Texas was struggling to cope with her new electric typewriter.
“My fingers would hang heavy on the sensitive keyboard and the first thing I'd know, I'd have a mistake with a deposit of carbon which I simply couldn't erase,” she said.
A budding artist, she wondered if there was a way she could paint over her typos.
At home, in her kitchen, the single mum cooked up the first correcting fluid. It was a hit with other secretaries and, by 1973, Bette had turned her creation into a multi-million dollar business.
Bette died in 1980 so Vicky Farncombe tells her story using archive from University of North Texas Special Collections.
Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there.
For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more.
Recent episodes explore everything from the death of Adolf Hitler, the first spacewalk and the making of the movie Jaws, to celebrity tortoise Lonesome George, the Kobe earthquake and the invention of superglue.
We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: Eva Peron – Argentina’s Evita; President Ronald Reagan and his famous ‘tear down this wall’ speech; Thomas Keneally on why he wrote Schindler’s List; and Jacques Derrida, France’s ‘rock star’ philosopher.
You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the civil rights swimming protest; the disastrous D-Day rehearsal; and the death of one of the world’s oldest languages.
(Photo: Correction fluid. Credit: Getty Images)