Uploaded January 2024 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
For most of modern history, business documents had to be painstakingly hand-copied by dedicated office clerks or scriveners. In the 1870s and 1880s, however, a number of innovative printing technologies emerged which allowed small runs of documents to be exactly and efficiently copied. Among the most successful was the cyclostyle, also known as the stencil duplicator or mimeograph, which reproduced documents using ink forced through a wax-paper stencil. A robust and reliable technology that brought printing to the masses, in modernized digital form mimeographs are still used to this day in certain applications.
Special thanks to Julian Horn for his help in researching this video.
0:00 Introduction
1:48 David Gestetner and Early Cyclostyles
3:46 Competitors: Papyrograph and Edison Mimeograph
6:13 Rotary Cyclostyle
6:49 Gestetner No.3: Main Features / How to Cut a Stencil
8:58 Gestetner No.3: Inking System
10:51 Colour Printing
12:15 Gestetner No.3: Other Controls
13:34 Raymond Loewy Redesign
14:30 Latter Days of the Gestetner Company / Risograph Machines
15:45 Social Impact of Mimeographs
16:37 Spirit Duplicators
16:46 Outro
SOURCES:
1900s.org.uk/banda.htm
officemuseum.com/copy_machines.htm
https://edison.rutgers.edu/images/patents/00224665.PDF
https://edison.rutgers.edu/images/patents/00180857.PDF
https://edisondigital.rutgers.edu/document/CA035A#?c=&m=&s=&cv=3&xywh=-483%2C-52%2C1720%2C1022
jewishgyor.org/en/2023/05/06/gestetner-the-father-of-the-copying-machine
tottenham-summerhillroad.com/gestetner_duplicators_tottenham.htm
fanlore.org/wiki/Gestetner
woorillacaught.com/roneo-machines
hagley.org/librarynews/gestetner-cyclostyle-office-duplication-machine-design-raymond-loewy
officeoffset.com/history/gestetner
web.archive.org/web/20140226180252/http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2007/01/ditto_machines_.html
web.archive.org/web/20090624015049/http://teched.vt.edu/gcc/HTML/PrintingsPast/BeforeCopies.html
For most of modern history, business documents had to be painstakingly hand-copied by dedicated office clerks or scriveners. In the 1870s and 1880s, however, a number of innovative printing technologies emerged which allowed small runs of documents to be exactly and efficiently copied. Among the most successful was the cyclostyle, also known as the stencil duplicator or mimeograph, which reproduced documents using ink forced through a wax-paper stencil. A robust and reliable technology that brought printing to the masses, in modernized digital form mimeographs are still used to this day in certain applications.
Special thanks to Julian Horn for his help in researching this video.
0:00 Introduction
1:48 David Gestetner and Early Cyclostyles
3:46 Competitors: Papyrograph and Edison Mimeograph
6:13 Rotary Cyclostyle
6:49 Gestetner No.3: Main Features / How to Cut a Stencil
8:58 Gestetner No.3: Inking System
10:51 Colour Printing
12:15 Gestetner No.3: Other Controls
13:34 Raymond Loewy Redesign
14:30 Latter Days of the Gestetner Company / Risograph Machines
15:45 Social Impact of Mimeographs
16:37 Spirit Duplicators
16:46 Outro
SOURCES:
1900s.org.uk/banda.htm
officemuseum.com/copy_machines.htm
https://edison.rutgers.edu/images/patents/00224665.PDF
https://edison.rutgers.edu/images/patents/00180857.PDF
https://edisondigital.rutgers.edu/document/CA035A#?c=&m=&s=&cv=3&xywh=-483%2C-52%2C1720%2C1022
jewishgyor.org/en/2023/05/06/gestetner-the-father-of-the-copying-machine
tottenham-summerhillroad.com/gestetner_duplicators_tottenham.htm
fanlore.org/wiki/Gestetner
woorillacaught.com/roneo-machines
hagley.org/librarynews/gestetner-cyclostyle-office-duplication-machine-design-raymond-loewy
officeoffset.com/history/gestetner
web.archive.org/web/20140226180252/http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2007/01/ditto_machines_.html
web.archive.org/web/20090624015049/http://teched.vt.edu/gcc/HTML/PrintingsPast/BeforeCopies.html
