Chester Carlson
The early twentieth century in the United States produced a generation of technically minded individuals who worked across the overlapping fields of science, law, and commerce. Chester Floyd Carlson was born on February 8, 1906, in Seattle, Washington, and over the course of his life held the roles of physicist, inventor, patent attorney, and businessperson.
Carlson was educated at San Bernardino High School, Riverside City College, the California Institute of Technology, and New York Law School. This sequence of institutions gave him a formation that spanned both the technical and legal dimensions of professional life in mid-century America. Working as a patent attorney alongside his activities as an inventor placed him in a position that was relatively uncommon among his contemporaries, combining scientific and legal practice within a single career.
His work received formal recognition through several honors. He received the Holley Medal and the Horatio Alger Award, and he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. These distinctions marked his standing among American inventors of the twentieth century. Carlson died on September 19, 1968, in New York City. His induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame stands as the most direct institutional acknowledgment of his contributions as a physicist and inventor during his lifetime.
Quotes by Chester Carlson
What Bell is to the telephone – or, more aptly, what Eastman is to photography – Haloid could be to xerography.
The need for a quick, satisfactory copying machine that could be used right in the office seemed very apparent to me-there seemed such a crying need for it-such a desirable thing if it could be obtained. So I set out to think of how one could be made.
