Joseph C. Wilson was born on December 19, 1909, in Rochester, New York, the son of Joseph R. Wilson and Katherine M. Upton. Joseph R. Wilson was president of the Haloid Company, which his father, Joseph C. Wilson, had founded, from 1938 to 1945.
Wilson attended local public schools and then entered the University of Rochester, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, from which he graduated in 1931.
Wilson then enrolled in the Graduate School of Business Administration of Harvard University, where he was one of five students named to the Harvard Business Review board, and from which he received the Master of Business Administration degree with high distinction in 1933.
Soon after graduation Wilson took a post as assistant to the sales manager at the Haloid Company, working for twenty dollars per week; for three years he worked successively in a variety of jobs, thereby gaining experience in all the company's departments. The company, which had taken its name from the halogen salts that were used in photography, produced a line of papers used to make copies of documents. At the time it was a marginal operation in an industry dominated by nearby Eastman Kodak.
In 1935, Haloid acquired controlling interest in the Rectograph Company, which manufactured a photocopy machine. Wilson became secretary of the Haloid Company in 1936 and secretary-treasurer in 1938. He held this position during World War II, when Haloid received many lucrative government contracts to supply photographic papers. As peace approached Haloid sought products that would enable it to avoid Eastman Kodak's domination. Executive Vice-President and chief engineer John Dessauer, who had come over from Rectograph, was assigned the task of developing such products. In 1945, he became aware of a machine invented by Chester Carlson that performed tasks today associated with copiers. Carlson had begun experimenting with such a machine in 1935, which was intended as an improvement over machines produced and sold by American Photocopy and several manufacturers of hectograph devices. The former company's machines made copies on coated paper, which soon became discolored, while hectographs' copies were made by mixing chemicals into a fluid, which then jelled in a pan. A master was placed on top of the mix, leaving an impression, after which copies were made by softly placing paper in the pan to absorb the ink. Clearly neither method was satisfactory. As a result, most of those who wanted copies used carbon paper affixed between sheets prior to writing or typing. After trying to obtain backing from several companies, including Eastman Kodak, he went off on his own.
By 1938, he had developed a crude machine, which he took to Kodak and some twenty other companies including IBM and RCA, but all turned him down. Only in 1944 did Carlson find the Battelle Memorial Foundation of Columbus, Ohio, a nonprofit research society, to bankroll him in return for a 60-percent interest in the invention. Carlson called his reproduction process "electrophotography. " He offered a demonstration, and Dessauer was impressed.
In 1946, Joseph C. Wilson became president and general manager of the Haloid Company. In 1947, he instructed his financial officer to try to purchase commercial rights to electrophotography from Battelle. Once he had purchased the rights to Carlson's process, Wilson decided to rename it; after rejecting several alternative names, he settled on "xerography, " derived from the Greek and literally meaning, "dry writing. "
The Haloid Company then threw all its resources behind xerography, borrowing heavily for that purpose. Had the process failed, Haloid would have been forced to declare bankruptcy. Its first commercial machine, a unit designed to produce paper and metal offset masters, was marketed in 1950, and had limited success. Five years later Haloid produced the Copyflo 11, a large machine designed to reproduce, on continuous rolls of paper, copies from microfilm. Other Copyflos followed. Now it seemed Haloid had found its new niche: it would be a manufacturer of commercial duplicators for special markets not addressed by other firms. At the time American Photocopy (Apeco) dominated the market for office copiers. The field was not large: most businesses still used carbon paper to make copies. Apeco made most of its money from the sale of diffusion transfer paper, and was quite content to sell its machines for low prices in order to encourage its paper sales. In this way, it commanded the field.
In 1956, Haloid purchased worldwide rights for the process from Battelle, and two years later Wilson changed his company's name to Haloid Xerox to signify the change in direction. Wilson planned to use this new technology to produce copies on plain paper, and in fact staked its future on this market. In 1960, the newly renamed Xerox Corporation produced the 914, a large machine capable of producing seven copies per minute. The machines were leased, not sold, with customers permitted a specified number of "free" copies, after which they were charged incrementally for each one. Apeco was troubled by this new development, but soon realized that the cost per copy with its machines and its special paper were less than what Xerox was charging--so the company sat back and did nothing. But customers were willing to pay a little extra for the better Xerox copies, and Apeco disappeared in the late 1960's. The 914 was a success, prompting the company to turn out additional products.
In 1961 Xerox released the 813, a desktop version of the 913. Other innovations followed: in 1964 Xerox introduced Long Distance Xerography, and soon after the 2400 machine, which as its name indicated produced 2, 400 copies per hour. As a result of its innovations, Xerox experienced rapid growth in sales and profits. In 1959, the last pre-914 year, revenues were $32 million and profits $2 million. That year Wilson was named chairman as well as president.
In 1961, the first full year of 914 sales, revenues rose to $61 million and earnings to $5. 5 million. Xerox common shares soon rose from a low of 4 to a high of 34. Xerox was a glamor company and a glamor stock in the early stages of the great bull market of the 1960's. By 1967 revenues were $701 million, earnings $97 million, and the stock peaked at 314. The 914 and 813 copiers accounted for the majority of sales and earnings, but by then the 2400 turned out more copies than all other Xerox equipment combined. Meanwhile, the company prepared the 3600, which was 50 percent faster than the 2400, for introduction the next year. It also readied the 720 and 660, faster versions of the 914 and 813. Through Rank Xerox in England, and later, Fuji Xerox in Japan, it placed machines worldwide.
In these first years Xerox rented close to 200, 000 copiers, and the company was working overtime to produce and place additional machines from its growing backlog. Of course, the company experienced exponential growth. Almost daily, new executives arrived from other major companies, and in some weeks more than one hundred production personnel were added to the payroll. In the last year of the Wilson era, Xerox ruled the copier industry. It also expanded into new areas through acquisition of such companies as University Microfilms, Electro-Optical Systems, Basic Systems, and American Education Publications.
In 1968, Wilson named Peter McColough his successor as president and chief executive officer. Wilson and McColough together planned the next step in Xerox's evolution: the purchase of Scientific Data System (SDS), which placed Xerox in the data processing business. But this turned out to be the first of several Xerox failures that occurred after Wilson left active command of the company. Wilson remained on the board of trustees and became honorary chairman. He continued to be concerned with Xerox's business, but now turned more to public service. Because of Wilson, the University of Rochester was the beneficiary of an irrevocable trust comprised of 90, 000 Xerox shares. Moreover, he left the university $20 million in his will.
In 1971, Wilson became chairman both of President Nixon's Committee on Health Education and of Governor Nelson Rockefeller's Steering Committee on Social Problems. He also demonstrated concern for urban problems. Joseph Wilson died suddenly, on November 22, 1971, of a heart attack, while lunching with Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York.
Joseph Chamberlain Wilson was the manager of the Haloid Company which, through Wilson's vision, bought the rights to developing the process later called xerography and became, in 1961, the Xerox Corporation. Xerography revolutionized the world of office management in the 1960s. The Wilson Commons as well as Wilson Boulevard at the University of Rochester river campus are named after Joseph Wilson. Joseph C. Wilson was inducted into the Junior Achievement U. S. Business Hall of Fame in 1980.
Quotations: "Our technology has not lived up to its obligations to society. "
Joseph C. Wilson served as a trustee of the Committee for Economic Development, of the Alfred Sloan Foundation, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, of the Sidney Hillman Health Center, of the George Eastman House, and of the Rochester Savings Bank.
In 1935, Joseph C. Wilson married Marie B. Curran; the couple had six children.
