The A. B. Dick Company (later stylized as ABDick) was a major American manufacturer of copy machines and office supplies in the late 19th century and 20th century.

Founding and growth

The company was founded in 1883 in

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

as a lumber company by

Albert Blake Dick Albert Blake Dick (April 16, 1856 – August 15, 1934) was a businessman who founded the A. B. Dick Company, a major American copier manufacturer and office supply company of the 20th Century. He coined the word "mimeograph". Dick attended scho ...

(1856 – 1934). It soon expanded into office supplies and, after licensing key autographic printing patents from

Thomas Edison Thomas Alva Edison (February11, 1847October18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventions, ...

, became the world's largest manufacturer of

mimeograph A mimeograph machine (often abbreviated to mimeo, sometimes called a stencil duplicator or stencil machine) is a low-cost duplicating machine that works by forcing ink through a stencil onto paper. The process is called mimeography, and a co ...

equipment (Albert Dick coined the word "mimeograph"). The company introduced the Model 0 Flatbed Duplicator in 1887. 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. 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. AB Dick model 350 and 360 small duplicator presses, paired with Itek Graphix plate makers, were instrumental in the beginnings of instant or "quick" printing shops that proliferated between the 1960s and 1980s. These early plate makers first used paper plates and later used polyester plates made by Mitsubishi. They revolutionized plate making for small press printers with the introduction of digital plate makers in the early 1990s. A. B. Dick also produced machines using the competing

spirit duplicator A spirit duplicator (also Rexograph and Ditto machine in North America, Banda machine and Fordigraph machine in the U.K. and Australia) is a printing method invented in 1923 by Wilhelm Ritzerfeld, which was used for most of the 20th century. Th ...

technology. Starting in the 1960s,

xerography Xerography is a dry photocopying technique. Originally called electrophotography, it was renamed xerography—from the Greek roots , meaning "dry" and , meaning "writing"—to emphasize that unlike reproduction techniques then in use such as c ...

began to overtake A. B. Dick's older mimeograph technology. John C. Stetson was president of A. B. Dick when he was appointed

Secretary of the Air Force The secretary of the Air Force, sometimes referred to as the secretary of the Department of the Air Force, (SecAF, or SAF/OS) is the head of the Department of the Air Force and the service secretary for the United States Air Force and United Sta ...

in 1978.

End of independent existence

In 1979, the company was acquired by the British

General Electric Company The General Electric Company (GEC) was a major British industrial conglomerate involved in consumer and Arms industry, defence electronics, communications, and engineering. It was originally founded in 1886 as G. Binswanger and Company as an e ...

(not to be confused with the American company General Electric). In the early 1980s, following this acquisition, A. B. Dick was involved with

GEC Computers GEC Computers Limited was a British computer manufacturing company under the GEC holding company from 1968 until the 1990s. History Starting life as Elliott Automation, in 1967–68 the data processing computer products were transferred to ...

in the design of the ill-fated GEC Series 63

minicomputer A minicomputer, or colloquially mini, is a type of general-purpose computer mostly developed from the mid-1960s, built significantly smaller and sold at a much lower price than mainframe computers . By 21st century-standards however, a mini is ...

. In 1988, the company acquired Itek Graphix, a leading manufacturer of plate-makers for duplicators (small format offset presses). By the late 1990s, A. B. Dick was a division of the Nesco company of

Cleveland Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...

. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2004, and its assets were acquired by Presstek, a manufacturer of

prepress Prepress is the term used in the printing and publishing industries for the processes and procedures that occur between the creation of a print layout and the final printing. The prepress process includes the preparation of artwork for press, media ...

products.A.B. Dick files Ch. 11, names buyer
''Chicago Business'', Rita Chang, July 13, 2004. Presstek sold its ABDick division to Mark Andy, Inc. in 2013. Mark Andy continues (as of 2024) to market products under the ABDick brand.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Manufacturing companies established in 1883 Manufacturing companies disestablished in 2004 Manufacturing companies based in Chicago Office supply companies of the United States Printing press manufacturers Defunct manufacturing companies of the United States 1883 establishments in Illinois 2004 disestablishments in Illinois Defunct computer companies of the United States Defunct computer hardware companies

Founding and growth

End of independent existence

References

Further reading

External links