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Short Stuff: Liquid Paper · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh, there's Chuck,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Jerry's here, Dave's here too, don't worry about that. And
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: this is short stuff, that's right. This is our our
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: women who changed History, episode one of them. Yeah for sure. Um,
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: we're talking about a woman named Betty Claire McMurray, better
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: known as Betty Knewsome Graham, better known as the woman
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: who invented um liquid paper, which also has a bunch
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: of different UM copiers like white out, which has become
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: a proprietary eponym. But really liquid paper was first, which
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: is why we're talking about Betty today. That's right. And
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: there's some really cool parts of the story. Uh. Betty
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: was born in Dallas and it's cool so far. She
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: went to school in San Antonio and then at seventeen
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: left school married her sweetheart, uh one Warren Nes Smith.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: And this is something I knew since I was a kid,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: is that Mike Nest Smith of the Monkeys, is that
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: was the heir to the liquid paper fortune because his
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: mom invented it. Yeah, so I knew that he was
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: an air to a fortune. I had no idea which
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: one that's really anes Yeah, I don't know why I
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: knew it back then. It was just one of those
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: weird little facts that always stuck with me. That Mike
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: from the Monkeys, his mom invented liquid paper, and she
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: did so largely. Well, let's get to the story. She
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: divorced not too long after she got married, just about
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: five years she got divorced in and so it was
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: a single mom with a kid, little little Mike, to
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: support before he started making that Monkey's dough. And eventually
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: she got a job as a typist at Texas Bank
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: and Trust. And there was a weird thing that happened
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: with the ribbons that we talked about in the Typewriter
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: episode that was just out. They went from fabric to carbon,
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: and the keyboards got a little more sensitive, and they
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: realized that mistakes were easier to make in typing, and
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: that that carbon ribbon would smudge. He used to sort
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: of erase it with the fabric ribbons, but now you
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: couldn't anymore. And she was like, I gotta fix this
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: because I'm tired of retype in my stuff. Yeah, I
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: mean imagine that. Imagine being a typist at at an
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: office and and like, you make one typo and you
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: have to retype the entire sheet. That was the thing.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: That was the thing, Yeah, at the very end. In
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: particularly so what she created, um, this liquid paper, which
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: originally she called mistake Out, was like a genuine godsend
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: um for herself. At first she she went home and
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: she had been trained as a painter. Did you say
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: that that her mama kind of taught her how to paint. No,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: but that kind of guided her life in a lot
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: of ways, as we'll see for sure. So she kind
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: of took that knowledge and um used what's known as
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: a tempera paint you know, the kind that they let
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: preschoolers paint with. That's the same thing as liquid paper.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: And then she took a watercolor brush, put it in
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: a little jar and brought it to work. And in
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: very short order, some of her colleagues, who were also
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: typists and secretaries, said, give me some of that. Yeah,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: I making mistakes like crazy, She said, stop making mistakes.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Then no, she said here uh And she had actually
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: even branded she started writing mistake out on the label
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: early on. I think probably, I think probably at first
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: just as sort of like a fun thing to do,
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: and then realize like, hey, people are actually using this stuff. Uh.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: She started to refine the process in her kitchen. This
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: is kind of like like an American dream story, like
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: working on a product out of your house that eventually
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: becomes like a multimillion dollar business. Uh. And that's what happened.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: She had a paint company employee that apparently helped her out,
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: and a chemistry teacher at a local high school that
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: helped her out. Who would play him the chemistry teacher? Yeah,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: I'm assuming it's to him. I don't know what you got, ed, Harris. Now,
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: he's too salty, too salty. No, that one um multi
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: talented character actor. I can't remember his name. I think
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: it's James, but he was like the guy in the game.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: Uh he's been Yeah yeah, the guy that's signed up
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Michael Douglas in the for the game. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: totally Kim, he would be great as that guy. I
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: like that. All Right, He's gassed as far as I'm concerned. Okay,
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: So she puts all this together, and um, she's she's
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: basically spending her nights and weekends working on um, just
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: getting as many of his bottles together as possible, but
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: also not making a lot of money. She hired Mike
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: and his friends to fill bottles at like a dollar
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: an hour a piece. I think, UM. And it wasn't
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: until that she either quit her job at the bank
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: or was fired from the bank for accidentally signing a
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: business document with her business's name and address. UM. Apparently
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: didn't use mistake out on that UM. And when she
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: was released from work, one way or another, she was
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: set free, and all of a sudden, mistake out became
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: like a big thing. So I say, now, Chuck, we
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: we take a break and then come back and talk
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: about how she built the business even further. Let's do
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: it all right. So she has left the job in
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: fifty eight, starts taking some meetings with some big corporations
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: that are ordering bottles, like hundreds of bottles of liquid
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: paper and this is g e IBM some big corporations.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: She applies for that patent, changes the name to liquid
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: Paper Company, and then starts doing that business things, starts
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: to reinvesting the profits, goes from the kitchen to the
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: backyard to a four room house. Uh, and then eventually
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: gets remarried in sixty two to a guy named Robert
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: Graham who kind of got super involved in the business. UH.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: As we'll see for better for worse. Yeah. So in
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: nineteen sixty eight, she's got nineteen employees, corporate headquarters, automated operations.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: In that year, she sold one million bottles of liquid paper,
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: which is pretty great. Um. By nineteen seventy five, she's
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: moved into a thirty five thousand square foot headquarters in
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: Dallas and the equipment that she's running can produce five
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: hundred bottles a minute. And there's something else that you
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: should know about Betty Graham. She uh ran the company
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: as a genuinely good person. There was a library in
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: the plant. There was a child care center in the plant.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: This is the mid seventies, by the way. Um, they
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: didn't even come up with that idea until the eighties
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: via the movie nine five, and she was already doing it.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: She also was a patron of women and the arts
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: and women who were also artists. Yeah. She set up
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: a couple of foundations. One, in fact, a lot of
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: the information and from this came from the I think
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: it's pronounced gihan g i h o n Foundation. She
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: found a way back in nineteen seventy six, which combined
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: her love of art with her supportive women in feminism.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: She collected paintings and art works by women, and then
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: also the Betty Claire McMurray Foundation, which since nineteen seventy
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: eight has been supporting women in need right like, if
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: you need shelter and counseling because you're being physically abused,
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: or um, if you're a non traditional student and you
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: need a scholarship. Um. Like, she definitely put her money
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: where her mouth is and she considered herself a feminist
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: for sure. UM. And so one of the other great
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: things about her her husband Robert Graham. They divorced in
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy five, I believe, and um, she ended up
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: stepping down as chairperson from Liquid Paper. Um. She built
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: this really great company selling million bottles at a time, UM,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: spending a million dollars in advertising, and she's like, this
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: thing is going it's fine. I'm gonna go focus on
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: my foundations. And Robert Graham was left along the board
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: and he did what can only be described as a
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: hostile takeover. Yeah, it was not a pretty site. She
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: came out on the losing end at first. UM. She
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: was basically kicked kicked out, wasn't allowed back on the
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: premises of the company. Uh. They changed her formula actually,
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: so she couldn't even get royalties anymore, which is one
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: of the biggest like scumbag moves of all time. Uh.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: And then still managed to sort of fight her way
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: back in. She had some health problems, but finally managed
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: to get control of the company again and in nineteen nine,
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: uh with controlling interest, sold Liquid Paper to Gillette for
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: almost forty eight million bucks. Pretty great. Yeah. She had
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: the very famous quote when she finally regained control of
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: her company, Robert, get out of my office. That's that's
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: what that's that's what's going to happen in the Robert Goolay. Okay,
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: he does a great jerk. Have you ever seen Naked
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: Gun two and a half? Yeah, of it is? He
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: is he with us? I don't know. But didn't they
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: do Peter Cushing and he's not still with us? Oh?
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Well, you could get Will Ferrell to
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: do Gooley because that's that's one of the funniest bits
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: of all time. Okay. Cool. Uh. And here's the thing
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: with Liquid Paper is that uh. And these are kind
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: of wonky stats and I'm not gonna go over all
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: of them because it's um. Some of them are from
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: likeeen but generally what they have found is h that
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: while office UM like paper itself, UM, office printers, things
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: like that, and office supplies have kind of trickled down
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: over the years, liquid paper somehow his either stayed strong
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: or even gained like a percentage point or two uh
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: from me to year uh, which is pretty amazing. And
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: they don't Liquid paper itself doesn't release their stats, but
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: I think they go by like generically like uh whatever,
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: correction products that's what they call them. But UM, I
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: know that during the pandemic, home printing and stuff like
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: that picked up, So I think I think the correction
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: products industry picked up because people all of a sudden, like, hey,
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: I'm at home now, and liquid paper you it wasn't
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: just for typing, you know, like I used it all
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: the time to like write over things, invent, let it dry,
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: and brush it thin. They actually think that it is
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: artists that's keeping the correction products UM market afloat and
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: making an increase. And then also gen Z and their
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: fondness for retro things that you do by hand, like
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: writing letters is also UM. Some of the patrons of
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: liquid paper and its competitors. Now, yeah, I think uh.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: At one point Emily, my wife switched over to the
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: little uh, a little entraption that fed out a tape.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: She was big on that. But that was kind of
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: a liquid paper purist. Okay, were you like brand Um loyal,
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: like too liquid paper? Yeah? I get that white out
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: out of my face. Okay. And hey, just to shout
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: out Mike Nesmuth real quick. I now everyone knows him
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: from the Monkeys, but Mike Nesmuth and I discovered this
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: sort of after his passing, released some really really great
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: solo records. Uh, and and looking back, was one of
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: the founders of country rock kind of before there was
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: country rock. That was a seventy four album called and
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: the Hits Just Keep on Coming that is now viewed
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: as like this genius country rock masterpiece that nobody would
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: touch back then, including record execs. Yeah. I remember, like
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: learning um that he was really just kind of unhappy
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: and stifled in the Monkeys. Like if there was a
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: sour puss among the four, it was definitely Mike, And
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: you can just tell by looking at him. But that
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: was why, like he was way more talented than he
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: was allowed to be. Yeah, But he he came around
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: and embraced the monkeys later in life, which was also great. Also,
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: big ups to the Atlantic and David Graham for the
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: article and thought Co and Mary Bellis and then the
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: Gihan Foundation. This is where most of the stuff came from.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: Very nice, Chuck, and um big hats off to you
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: for choosing as well. Short stuff is that