A.B. Dick Company

A.B. Dick Company
Defunct
Industry Graphic Arts Equipment
Founded Chicago, Illinois, United States, 1883[1]
Founder 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.)
Number of 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").[3] The company introduced the Model 0 Flatbed Duplicator in 1887.[4] 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.[4]

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.[5]

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. A. B. Dick also produced machines using the competing spirit duplicator technology. 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.[6]

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 early 1980s, following the acquisition by the British GEC, A. B. Dick was involved with GEC Computers in the production of the ill-fated GEC Series 63 minicomputer.[7]

The company filed for bankruptcy in 2004, and many of its assets now belong to Presstek, a manufacturer of prepress products.[8]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Men of Affairs". Chicago Evening Post. 1906. Retrieved August 11, 2011.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Mark R. Wilson, with Stephen R. Porter and Janice L. Reiff. "Dick (A. B.) Co.". Encyclopedia of Chicago. Retrieved August 11, 2011.
  3. ↑ Owen, David (2004). Copies in seconds: how a lone inventor and an unknown company created the biggest communication breakthrough since Gutenberg: Chester Carlson and the birth of the Xerox machine. New York: Simon & Schuster. p. 44.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Randy Alfred (August 8, 2008). "Aug. 8, 1876: Run This Off on the Mimeo". Wired. Retrieved August 11, 2011.
  5. ↑ "History". Haberdasher Square Lofts. Retrieved August 11, 2011.
  6. ↑ "JOHN C. STETSON". The Official Web site of the United States Air Force. Retrieved August 11, 2011.
  7. ↑ Lavington, Simon (2011). "14.5 — The GEC Series 63: A Very Difficult Project". Moving Targets — Elliott-Automation and the Dawn of the Computer Age in Britain, 1947-67. Springer. ISBN 978-1-84882-932-9.
  8. ↑ A.B. Dick files Ch. 11, names buyer, Chicago Business, Rita Chang, July 13, 2004.

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Further reading