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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh, there's Chuck,

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Speaker 1: Jerry's here, Dave's here too, don't worry about that. And

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Speaker 1: this is short stuff, that's right. This is our our

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Speaker 1: women who changed History, episode one of them. Yeah for sure. Um,

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Speaker 1: we're talking about a woman named Betty Claire McMurray, better

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Speaker 1: known as Betty Knewsome Graham, better known as the woman

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Speaker 1: who invented um liquid paper, which also has a bunch

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Speaker 1: of different UM copiers like white out, which has become

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Speaker 1: a proprietary eponym. But really liquid paper was first, which

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Speaker 1: is why we're talking about Betty today. That's right. And

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Speaker 1: there's some really cool parts of the story. Uh. Betty

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Speaker 1: was born in Dallas and it's cool so far. She

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Speaker 1: went to school in San Antonio and then at seventeen

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Speaker 1: left school married her sweetheart, uh one Warren Nes Smith.

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Speaker 1: And this is something I knew since I was a kid,

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Speaker 1: is that Mike Nest Smith of the Monkeys, is that

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Speaker 1: was the heir to the liquid paper fortune because his

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Speaker 1: mom invented it. Yeah, so I knew that he was

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Speaker 1: an air to a fortune. I had no idea which

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Speaker 1: one that's really anes Yeah, I don't know why I

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Speaker 1: knew it back then. It was just one of those

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Speaker 1: weird little facts that always stuck with me. That Mike

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Speaker 1: from the Monkeys, his mom invented liquid paper, and she

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Speaker 1: did so largely. Well, let's get to the story. She

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Speaker 1: divorced not too long after she got married, just about

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Speaker 1: five years she got divorced in and so it was

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Speaker 1: a single mom with a kid, little little Mike, to

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Speaker 1: support before he started making that Monkey's dough. And eventually

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Speaker 1: she got a job as a typist at Texas Bank

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Speaker 1: and Trust. And there was a weird thing that happened

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Speaker 1: with the ribbons that we talked about in the Typewriter

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Speaker 1: episode that was just out. They went from fabric to carbon,

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Speaker 1: and the keyboards got a little more sensitive, and they

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Speaker 1: realized that mistakes were easier to make in typing, and

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Speaker 1: that that carbon ribbon would smudge. He used to sort

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Speaker 1: of erase it with the fabric ribbons, but now you

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Speaker 1: couldn't anymore. And she was like, I gotta fix this

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Speaker 1: because I'm tired of retype in my stuff. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: mean imagine that. Imagine being a typist at at an

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Speaker 1: office and and like, you make one typo and you

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Speaker 1: have to retype the entire sheet. That was the thing.

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Speaker 1: That was the thing, Yeah, at the very end. In

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Speaker 1: particularly so what she created, um, this liquid paper, which

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Speaker 1: originally she called mistake Out, was like a genuine godsend

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Speaker 1: um for herself. At first she she went home and

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Speaker 1: she had been trained as a painter. Did you say

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Speaker 1: that that her mama kind of taught her how to paint. No,

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Speaker 1: but that kind of guided her life in a lot

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Speaker 1: of ways, as we'll see for sure. So she kind

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Speaker 1: of took that knowledge and um used what's known as

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Speaker 1: a tempera paint you know, the kind that they let

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Speaker 1: preschoolers paint with. That's the same thing as liquid paper.

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Speaker 1: And then she took a watercolor brush, put it in

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Speaker 1: a little jar and brought it to work. And in

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Speaker 1: very short order, some of her colleagues, who were also

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Speaker 1: typists and secretaries, said, give me some of that. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I making mistakes like crazy, She said, stop making mistakes.

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Speaker 1: Then no, she said here uh And she had actually

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Speaker 1: even branded she started writing mistake out on the label

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Speaker 1: early on. I think probably, I think probably at first

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Speaker 1: just as sort of like a fun thing to do,

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Speaker 1: and then realize like, hey, people are actually using this stuff. Uh.

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Speaker 1: She started to refine the process in her kitchen. This

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Speaker 1: is kind of like like an American dream story, like

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Speaker 1: working on a product out of your house that eventually

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Speaker 1: becomes like a multimillion dollar business. Uh. And that's what happened.

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Speaker 1: She had a paint company employee that apparently helped her out,

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Speaker 1: and a chemistry teacher at a local high school that

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Speaker 1: helped her out. Who would play him the chemistry teacher? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'm assuming it's to him. I don't know what you got, ed, Harris. Now,

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Speaker 1: he's too salty, too salty. No, that one um multi

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Speaker 1: talented character actor. I can't remember his name. I think

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Speaker 1: it's James, but he was like the guy in the game.

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Speaker 1: Uh he's been Yeah yeah, the guy that's signed up

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Speaker 1: Michael Douglas in the for the game. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: totally Kim, he would be great as that guy. I

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Speaker 1: like that. All Right, He's gassed as far as I'm concerned. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So she puts all this together, and um, she's she's

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Speaker 1: basically spending her nights and weekends working on um, just

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Speaker 1: getting as many of his bottles together as possible, but

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Speaker 1: also not making a lot of money. She hired Mike

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Speaker 1: and his friends to fill bottles at like a dollar

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Speaker 1: an hour a piece. I think, UM. And it wasn't

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Speaker 1: until that she either quit her job at the bank

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Speaker 1: or was fired from the bank for accidentally signing a

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Speaker 1: business document with her business's name and address. UM. Apparently

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Speaker 1: didn't use mistake out on that UM. And when she

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Speaker 1: was released from work, one way or another, she was

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Speaker 1: set free, and all of a sudden, mistake out became

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Speaker 1: like a big thing. So I say, now, Chuck, we

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Speaker 1: we take a break and then come back and talk

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Speaker 1: about how she built the business even further. Let's do

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Speaker 1: it all right. So she has left the job in

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Speaker 1: fifty eight, starts taking some meetings with some big corporations

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Speaker 1: that are ordering bottles, like hundreds of bottles of liquid

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Speaker 1: paper and this is g e IBM some big corporations.

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Speaker 1: She applies for that patent, changes the name to liquid

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Speaker 1: Paper Company, and then starts doing that business things, starts

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Speaker 1: to reinvesting the profits, goes from the kitchen to the

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Speaker 1: backyard to a four room house. Uh, and then eventually

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Speaker 1: gets remarried in sixty two to a guy named Robert

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Speaker 1: Graham who kind of got super involved in the business. UH.

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Speaker 1: As we'll see for better for worse. Yeah. So in

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty eight, she's got nineteen employees, corporate headquarters, automated operations.

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Speaker 1: In that year, she sold one million bottles of liquid paper,

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Speaker 1: which is pretty great. Um. By nineteen seventy five, she's

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Speaker 1: moved into a thirty five thousand square foot headquarters in

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Speaker 1: Dallas and the equipment that she's running can produce five

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Speaker 1: hundred bottles a minute. And there's something else that you

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Speaker 1: should know about Betty Graham. She uh ran the company

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Speaker 1: as a genuinely good person. There was a library in

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Speaker 1: the plant. There was a child care center in the plant.

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Speaker 1: This is the mid seventies, by the way. Um, they

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Speaker 1: didn't even come up with that idea until the eighties

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Speaker 1: via the movie nine five, and she was already doing it.

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Speaker 1: She also was a patron of women and the arts

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Speaker 1: and women who were also artists. Yeah. She set up

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Speaker 1: a couple of foundations. One, in fact, a lot of

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Speaker 1: the information and from this came from the I think

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Speaker 1: it's pronounced gihan g i h o n Foundation. She

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Speaker 1: found a way back in nineteen seventy six, which combined

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Speaker 1: her love of art with her supportive women in feminism.

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Speaker 1: She collected paintings and art works by women, and then

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Speaker 1: also the Betty Claire McMurray Foundation, which since nineteen seventy

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Speaker 1: eight has been supporting women in need right like, if

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Speaker 1: you need shelter and counseling because you're being physically abused,

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Speaker 1: or um, if you're a non traditional student and you

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Speaker 1: need a scholarship. Um. Like, she definitely put her money

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Speaker 1: where her mouth is and she considered herself a feminist

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Speaker 1: for sure. UM. And so one of the other great

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Speaker 1: things about her her husband Robert Graham. They divorced in

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy five, I believe, and um, she ended up

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Speaker 1: stepping down as chairperson from Liquid Paper. Um. She built

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Speaker 1: this really great company selling million bottles at a time, UM,

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Speaker 1: spending a million dollars in advertising, and she's like, this

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Speaker 1: thing is going it's fine. I'm gonna go focus on

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Speaker 1: my foundations. And Robert Graham was left along the board

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Speaker 1: and he did what can only be described as a

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Speaker 1: hostile takeover. Yeah, it was not a pretty site. She

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Speaker 1: came out on the losing end at first. UM. She

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Speaker 1: was basically kicked kicked out, wasn't allowed back on the

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Speaker 1: premises of the company. Uh. They changed her formula actually,

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Speaker 1: so she couldn't even get royalties anymore, which is one

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Speaker 1: of the biggest like scumbag moves of all time. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And then still managed to sort of fight her way

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Speaker 1: back in. She had some health problems, but finally managed

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Speaker 1: to get control of the company again and in nineteen nine,

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Speaker 1: uh with controlling interest, sold Liquid Paper to Gillette for

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Speaker 1: almost forty eight million bucks. Pretty great. Yeah. She had

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Speaker 1: the very famous quote when she finally regained control of

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Speaker 1: her company, Robert, get out of my office. That's that's

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Speaker 1: what that's that's what's going to happen in the Robert Goolay. Okay,

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Speaker 1: he does a great jerk. Have you ever seen Naked

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Speaker 1: Gun two and a half? Yeah, of it is? He

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Speaker 1: is he with us? I don't know. But didn't they

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Speaker 1: do Peter Cushing and he's not still with us? Oh?

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Speaker 1: I don't know. Well, you could get Will Ferrell to

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Speaker 1: do Gooley because that's that's one of the funniest bits

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Speaker 1: of all time. Okay. Cool. Uh. And here's the thing

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Speaker 1: with Liquid Paper is that uh. And these are kind

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Speaker 1: of wonky stats and I'm not gonna go over all

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Speaker 1: of them because it's um. Some of them are from

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Speaker 1: likeeen but generally what they have found is h that

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Speaker 1: while office UM like paper itself, UM, office printers, things

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Speaker 1: like that, and office supplies have kind of trickled down

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Speaker 1: over the years, liquid paper somehow his either stayed strong

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Speaker 1: or even gained like a percentage point or two uh

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Speaker 1: from me to year uh, which is pretty amazing. And

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Speaker 1: they don't Liquid paper itself doesn't release their stats, but

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Speaker 1: I think they go by like generically like uh whatever,

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Speaker 1: correction products that's what they call them. But UM, I

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Speaker 1: know that during the pandemic, home printing and stuff like

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Speaker 1: that picked up, So I think I think the correction

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Speaker 1: products industry picked up because people all of a sudden, like, hey,

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Speaker 1: I'm at home now, and liquid paper you it wasn't

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Speaker 1: just for typing, you know, like I used it all

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Speaker 1: the time to like write over things, invent, let it dry,

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Speaker 1: and brush it thin. They actually think that it is

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Speaker 1: artists that's keeping the correction products UM market afloat and

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Speaker 1: making an increase. And then also gen Z and their

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Speaker 1: fondness for retro things that you do by hand, like

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Speaker 1: writing letters is also UM. Some of the patrons of

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Speaker 1: liquid paper and its competitors. Now, yeah, I think uh.

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Speaker 1: At one point Emily, my wife switched over to the

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Speaker 1: little uh, a little entraption that fed out a tape.

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Speaker 1: She was big on that. But that was kind of

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Speaker 1: a liquid paper purist. Okay, were you like brand Um loyal,

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Speaker 1: like too liquid paper? Yeah? I get that white out

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Speaker 1: out of my face. Okay. And hey, just to shout

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Speaker 1: out Mike Nesmuth real quick. I now everyone knows him

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Speaker 1: from the Monkeys, but Mike Nesmuth and I discovered this

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Speaker 1: sort of after his passing, released some really really great

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Speaker 1: solo records. Uh, and and looking back, was one of

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Speaker 1: the founders of country rock kind of before there was

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Speaker 1: country rock. That was a seventy four album called and

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Speaker 1: the Hits Just Keep on Coming that is now viewed

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Speaker 1: as like this genius country rock masterpiece that nobody would

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Speaker 1: touch back then, including record execs. Yeah. I remember, like

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Speaker 1: learning um that he was really just kind of unhappy

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Speaker 1: and stifled in the Monkeys. Like if there was a

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Speaker 1: sour puss among the four, it was definitely Mike, And

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Speaker 1: you can just tell by looking at him. But that

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Speaker 1: was why, like he was way more talented than he

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Speaker 1: was allowed to be. Yeah, But he he came around

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Speaker 1: and embraced the monkeys later in life, which was also great. Also,

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Speaker 1: big ups to the Atlantic and David Graham for the

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Speaker 1: article and thought Co and Mary Bellis and then the

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Speaker 1: Gihan Foundation. This is where most of the stuff came from.

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Speaker 1: Very nice, Chuck, and um big hats off to you

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Speaker 1: for choosing as well. Short stuff is that