| Former type | Defunct |
|---|---|
| Industry | Graphic Arts Equipment |
| Founded | Chicago, Illinois, United States, 1883[1] |
| Founder(s) | Albert Blake Dick |
| Defunct | July 2004 |
| Headquarters | Niles, Illinois, United States |
| Key people | Albert Blake Dick, Founder Albert Blake Dick, Jr., second president A.B. Dick III, third president Karl Van Tassel, president John Stetson, president Ed Suchma final president and CEO |
| Revenue | $268.62 million (1998 est.) |
| Employees | about 900, mid-1930s[2] about 1,200 in 1996 |
| Website | http://www.presstek.com/ |
The A. B. Dick Company was a major American manufacturer of copy machines and office supplies in the late 19th Century and the 20th Century.
The company was founded in 1883[1] in Chicago as a lumber company by Albert Blake Dick (1856 – 1934). It soon expanded into office supplies and, after licensing key autographic printing patents from Thomas Edison, became the world's largest manufacturer of mimeograph equipment (Albert Dick coined the word "mimeograph"). The company introduced the Model 0 Flatbed Duplicator in 1887.[3] Later on, the flatbed duplicators were replaced by devices using a rotating cylinder with automatic ink feed. Basic models were hand-cranked while more elaborate machines used an electric motor.[3]
The company had a new headquarters built in 1926, the building at 728 West Jackson now called Haberdasher Square Lofts, and remained there until their move to suburban Niles in 1949.[4]
The company virtually created the business of "quick printing" via storefront shops that printed from disposable plates on duplicators. Tens of thousands of its Model 350 and 360 duplicator were sold, many of which are still in use. Starting in the 1960s, xerography began to overtake A. B, Dick's older mimeograph technology.[2]
John Stetson was president of A. B. Dick when he was appointed Secretary of the Air Force in 1978.[5]
In 1979 the company was acquired by the General Electric Company (a British firm, not to be confused with the American company General Electric).[2] In 1988 the company acquired Itek Graphix, a leading manufacturer of plate-makers for duplicators (small format offset presses). By the late 1990s it was a division of the Nesco company of Cleveland.[2]
In the 1980s, A. B. Dick was involved with GEC Computers in the production of the ill-fated GEC Series 63 minicomputer.
The company filed for bankruptcy in 2004 and many of its assets now belong to Presstek, a manufacturer of prepress products.[6]