Bette Nesmith Graham was born March 23rd, 1924 (“Bette Nesmith Graham: Liquid Paper Inventor,” n.d.). She was a typist, and artist, a secretary, a mother, and inventor of liquid paper. Graham was born in Dallas, Texas and grew up nearby in San Antonio, Texas (“Bette Nesmith Graham: Liquid Paper Inventor,” n.d.). She dropped out of high school at 17 and went on to marry her husband Warren Nesmith right before he left for World War II and had a son named Michael while her husband was away. During this time Bette Nesmith Graham worked as a secretary during the day and studied for her GED at night (Staff, 2014). When her husband came back, they got a divorce and she moved to some property left to her by her father. As a single mother, Graham had to find a way to support her child. She went on to work for Texas Bank and Trust and she became executive secretary, the highest position open to women (Staff, 2014).
Graham used typewriters a lot in her work and was tired of having to retype a whole document do to one mistake. She watched the window painters at the bank and noticed that instead of starting over when they messed up, they just covered the mistake with another layer of paint. From this, her idea of Liquid Paper was born. One day at work Graham made a mistake at work that she couldn’t just fix with Liquid Paper. This mistake got Graham fired but it gave her more time to spend on her invention (“Meet the Single Mom Who Invented Liquid Paper,” n.d.). The extra time was exactly what she needed and her business took off from there. A quote from Bette Nesmith Graham herself says “I didn’t have a fellow at the time, so I had to do it all myself. I had to … appreciate that as a woman, I was strong, complete, adequate… (Staff, 2014).”
Although Graham made a lot of money from her Liquid Paper idea, she didn’t pocket a lot of it. At one point she was profiting $1.5 million but putting $1 million back into advertising (“Meet the Single Mom Who Invented Liquid Paper,” n.d.). Bette Graham also put her money into two foundations which were used to help women find work (“Meet the Single Mom Who Invented Liquid Paper,” n.d.). The foundations provided career guidance, shelter, counseling, and scholarships for women (Staff, 2014). One of these foundations called the Gihon Foundation still exists today (Staff, 2014). Six months before her death she sold her company to Gillette for $47.5 million dollars. Not long after she said that she regretted her decision to do so because the company did not withhold her corporate philosophy (Staff, 2014). Graham built a company that fostered “cultural, educational, and spiritual development of it’s employees (Staff, 2014).” She described herself as “a feminist that wants freedom for myself and everybody else (Staff, 2014).” Bette Nesmith Graham died at the age of 56 on May 12th, 1980 leaving behind her son Michael Nesmith who went on to be a famous musician in the band The Monkees.
