Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh, there's Chuck,
Speaker 1: Jerry's here, Dave's here too, don't worry about that. And
Speaker 1: this is short stuff, that's right. This is our our
Speaker 1: women who changed History, episode one of them. Yeah for sure. Um,
Speaker 1: we're talking about a woman named Betty Claire McMurray, better
Speaker 1: known as Betty Knewsome Graham, better known as the woman
Speaker 1: who invented um liquid paper, which also has a bunch
Speaker 1: of different UM copiers like white out, which has become
Speaker 1: a proprietary eponym. But really liquid paper was first, which
Speaker 1: is why we're talking about Betty today. That's right. And
Speaker 1: there's some really cool parts of the story. Uh. Betty
Speaker 1: was born in Dallas and it's cool so far. She
Speaker 1: went to school in San Antonio and then at seventeen
Speaker 1: left school married her sweetheart, uh one Warren Nes Smith.
Speaker 1: And this is something I knew since I was a kid,
Speaker 1: is that Mike Nest Smith of the Monkeys, is that
Speaker 1: was the heir to the liquid paper fortune because his
Speaker 1: mom invented it. Yeah, so I knew that he was
Speaker 1: an air to a fortune. I had no idea which
Speaker 1: one that's really anes Yeah, I don't know why I
Speaker 1: knew it back then. It was just one of those
Speaker 1: weird little facts that always stuck with me. That Mike
Speaker 1: from the Monkeys, his mom invented liquid paper, and she
Speaker 1: did so largely. Well, let's get to the story. She
Speaker 1: divorced not too long after she got married, just about
Speaker 1: five years she got divorced in and so it was
Speaker 1: a single mom with a kid, little little Mike, to
Speaker 1: support before he started making that Monkey's dough. And eventually
Speaker 1: she got a job as a typist at Texas Bank
Speaker 1: and Trust. And there was a weird thing that happened
Speaker 1: with the ribbons that we talked about in the Typewriter
Speaker 1: episode that was just out. They went from fabric to carbon,
Speaker 1: and the keyboards got a little more sensitive, and they
Speaker 1: realized that mistakes were easier to make in typing, and
Speaker 1: that that carbon ribbon would smudge. He used to sort
Speaker 1: of erase it with the fabric ribbons, but now you
Speaker 1: couldn't anymore. And she was like, I gotta fix this
Speaker 1: because I'm tired of retype in my stuff. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean imagine that. Imagine being a typist at at an
Speaker 1: office and and like, you make one typo and you
Speaker 1: have to retype the entire sheet. That was the thing.
Speaker 1: That was the thing, Yeah, at the very end. In
Speaker 1: particularly so what she created, um, this liquid paper, which
Speaker 1: originally she called mistake Out, was like a genuine godsend
Speaker 1: um for herself. At first she she went home and
Speaker 1: she had been trained as a painter. Did you say
Speaker 1: that that her mama kind of taught her how to paint. No,
Speaker 1: but that kind of guided her life in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways, as we'll see for sure. So she kind
Speaker 1: of took that knowledge and um used what's known as
Speaker 1: a tempera paint you know, the kind that they let
Speaker 1: preschoolers paint with. That's the same thing as liquid paper.
Speaker 1: And then she took a watercolor brush, put it in
Speaker 1: a little jar and brought it to work. And in
Speaker 1: very short order, some of her colleagues, who were also
Speaker 1: typists and secretaries, said, give me some of that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I making mistakes like crazy, She said, stop making mistakes.
Speaker 1: Then no, she said here uh And she had actually
Speaker 1: even branded she started writing mistake out on the label
Speaker 1: early on. I think probably, I think probably at first
Speaker 1: just as sort of like a fun thing to do,
Speaker 1: and then realize like, hey, people are actually using this stuff. Uh.
Speaker 1: She started to refine the process in her kitchen. This
Speaker 1: is kind of like like an American dream story, like
Speaker 1: working on a product out of your house that eventually
Speaker 1: becomes like a multimillion dollar business. Uh. And that's what happened.
Speaker 1: She had a paint company employee that apparently helped her out,
Speaker 1: and a chemistry teacher at a local high school that
Speaker 1: helped her out. Who would play him the chemistry teacher? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm assuming it's to him. I don't know what you got, ed, Harris. Now,
Speaker 1: he's too salty, too salty. No, that one um multi
Speaker 1: talented character actor. I can't remember his name. I think
Speaker 1: it's James, but he was like the guy in the game.
Speaker 1: Uh he's been Yeah yeah, the guy that's signed up
Speaker 1: Michael Douglas in the for the game. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: totally Kim, he would be great as that guy. I
Speaker 1: like that. All Right, He's gassed as far as I'm concerned. Okay,
Speaker 1: So she puts all this together, and um, she's she's
Speaker 1: basically spending her nights and weekends working on um, just
Speaker 1: getting as many of his bottles together as possible, but
Speaker 1: also not making a lot of money. She hired Mike
Speaker 1: and his friends to fill bottles at like a dollar
Speaker 1: an hour a piece. I think, UM. And it wasn't
Speaker 1: until that she either quit her job at the bank
Speaker 1: or was fired from the bank for accidentally signing a
Speaker 1: business document with her business's name and address. UM. Apparently
Speaker 1: didn't use mistake out on that UM. And when she
Speaker 1: was released from work, one way or another, she was
Speaker 1: set free, and all of a sudden, mistake out became
Speaker 1: like a big thing. So I say, now, Chuck, we
Speaker 1: we take a break and then come back and talk
Speaker 1: about how she built the business even further. Let's do
Speaker 1: it all right. So she has left the job in
Speaker 1: fifty eight, starts taking some meetings with some big corporations
Speaker 1: that are ordering bottles, like hundreds of bottles of liquid
Speaker 1: paper and this is g e IBM some big corporations.
Speaker 1: She applies for that patent, changes the name to liquid
Speaker 1: Paper Company, and then starts doing that business things, starts
Speaker 1: to reinvesting the profits, goes from the kitchen to the
Speaker 1: backyard to a four room house. Uh, and then eventually
Speaker 1: gets remarried in sixty two to a guy named Robert
Speaker 1: Graham who kind of got super involved in the business. UH.
Speaker 1: As we'll see for better for worse. Yeah. So in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty eight, she's got nineteen employees, corporate headquarters, automated operations.
Speaker 1: In that year, she sold one million bottles of liquid paper,
Speaker 1: which is pretty great. Um. By nineteen seventy five, she's
Speaker 1: moved into a thirty five thousand square foot headquarters in
Speaker 1: Dallas and the equipment that she's running can produce five
Speaker 1: hundred bottles a minute. And there's something else that you
Speaker 1: should know about Betty Graham. She uh ran the company
Speaker 1: as a genuinely good person. There was a library in
Speaker 1: the plant. There was a child care center in the plant.
Speaker 1: This is the mid seventies, by the way. Um, they
Speaker 1: didn't even come up with that idea until the eighties
Speaker 1: via the movie nine five, and she was already doing it.
Speaker 1: She also was a patron of women and the arts
Speaker 1: and women who were also artists. Yeah. She set up
Speaker 1: a couple of foundations. One, in fact, a lot of
Speaker 1: the information and from this came from the I think
Speaker 1: it's pronounced gihan g i h o n Foundation. She
Speaker 1: found a way back in nineteen seventy six, which combined
Speaker 1: her love of art with her supportive women in feminism.
Speaker 1: She collected paintings and art works by women, and then
Speaker 1: also the Betty Claire McMurray Foundation, which since nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: eight has been supporting women in need right like, if
Speaker 1: you need shelter and counseling because you're being physically abused,
Speaker 1: or um, if you're a non traditional student and you
Speaker 1: need a scholarship. Um. Like, she definitely put her money
Speaker 1: where her mouth is and she considered herself a feminist
Speaker 1: for sure. UM. And so one of the other great
Speaker 1: things about her her husband Robert Graham. They divorced in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy five, I believe, and um, she ended up
Speaker 1: stepping down as chairperson from Liquid Paper. Um. She built
Speaker 1: this really great company selling million bottles at a time, UM,
Speaker 1: spending a million dollars in advertising, and she's like, this
Speaker 1: thing is going it's fine. I'm gonna go focus on
Speaker 1: my foundations. And Robert Graham was left along the board
Speaker 1: and he did what can only be described as a
Speaker 1: hostile takeover. Yeah, it was not a pretty site. She
Speaker 1: came out on the losing end at first. UM. She
Speaker 1: was basically kicked kicked out, wasn't allowed back on the
Speaker 1: premises of the company. Uh. They changed her formula actually,
Speaker 1: so she couldn't even get royalties anymore, which is one
Speaker 1: of the biggest like scumbag moves of all time. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then still managed to sort of fight her way
Speaker 1: back in. She had some health problems, but finally managed
Speaker 1: to get control of the company again and in nineteen nine,
Speaker 1: uh with controlling interest, sold Liquid Paper to Gillette for
Speaker 1: almost forty eight million bucks. Pretty great. Yeah. She had
Speaker 1: the very famous quote when she finally regained control of
Speaker 1: her company, Robert, get out of my office. That's that's
Speaker 1: what that's that's what's going to happen in the Robert Goolay. Okay,
Speaker 1: he does a great jerk. Have you ever seen Naked
Speaker 1: Gun two and a half? Yeah, of it is? He
Speaker 1: is he with us? I don't know. But didn't they
Speaker 1: do Peter Cushing and he's not still with us? Oh?
Speaker 1: I don't know. Well, you could get Will Ferrell to
Speaker 1: do Gooley because that's that's one of the funniest bits
Speaker 1: of all time. Okay. Cool. Uh. And here's the thing
Speaker 1: with Liquid Paper is that uh. And these are kind
Speaker 1: of wonky stats and I'm not gonna go over all
Speaker 1: of them because it's um. Some of them are from
Speaker 1: likeeen but generally what they have found is h that
Speaker 1: while office UM like paper itself, UM, office printers, things
Speaker 1: like that, and office supplies have kind of trickled down
Speaker 1: over the years, liquid paper somehow his either stayed strong
Speaker 1: or even gained like a percentage point or two uh
Speaker 1: from me to year uh, which is pretty amazing. And
Speaker 1: they don't Liquid paper itself doesn't release their stats, but
Speaker 1: I think they go by like generically like uh whatever,
Speaker 1: correction products that's what they call them. But UM, I
Speaker 1: know that during the pandemic, home printing and stuff like
Speaker 1: that picked up, So I think I think the correction
Speaker 1: products industry picked up because people all of a sudden, like, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm at home now, and liquid paper you it wasn't
Speaker 1: just for typing, you know, like I used it all
Speaker 1: the time to like write over things, invent, let it dry,
Speaker 1: and brush it thin. They actually think that it is
Speaker 1: artists that's keeping the correction products UM market afloat and
Speaker 1: making an increase. And then also gen Z and their
Speaker 1: fondness for retro things that you do by hand, like
Speaker 1: writing letters is also UM. Some of the patrons of
Speaker 1: liquid paper and its competitors. Now, yeah, I think uh.
Speaker 1: At one point Emily, my wife switched over to the
Speaker 1: little uh, a little entraption that fed out a tape.
Speaker 1: She was big on that. But that was kind of
Speaker 1: a liquid paper purist. Okay, were you like brand Um loyal,
Speaker 1: like too liquid paper? Yeah? I get that white out
Speaker 1: out of my face. Okay. And hey, just to shout
Speaker 1: out Mike Nesmuth real quick. I now everyone knows him
Speaker 1: from the Monkeys, but Mike Nesmuth and I discovered this
Speaker 1: sort of after his passing, released some really really great
Speaker 1: solo records. Uh, and and looking back, was one of
Speaker 1: the founders of country rock kind of before there was
Speaker 1: country rock. That was a seventy four album called and
Speaker 1: the Hits Just Keep on Coming that is now viewed
Speaker 1: as like this genius country rock masterpiece that nobody would
Speaker 1: touch back then, including record execs. Yeah. I remember, like
Speaker 1: learning um that he was really just kind of unhappy
Speaker 1: and stifled in the Monkeys. Like if there was a
Speaker 1: sour puss among the four, it was definitely Mike, And
Speaker 1: you can just tell by looking at him. But that
Speaker 1: was why, like he was way more talented than he
Speaker 1: was allowed to be. Yeah, But he he came around
Speaker 1: and embraced the monkeys later in life, which was also great. Also,
Speaker 1: big ups to the Atlantic and David Graham for the
Speaker 1: article and thought Co and Mary Bellis and then the
Speaker 1: Gihan Foundation. This is where most of the stuff came from.
Speaker 1: Very nice, Chuck, and um big hats off to you
Speaker 1: for choosing as well. Short stuff is that