Graham died in 1980, but this obit was published yesterday because it's part of the NYT's project to write obits for "remarkable people" in the past (e.g. Ada Lovelace and Henrietta Lacks) who apparently died without note.
Not interested in getting into a gender bias/history debate (I think most of us can agree that there was inequality decades ago), but I was genuinely surprised that the NYT in 1980 wouldn't have written an obit for Graham at the time of her death. Her life has all the facets of a great interesting story, and she was wealthy in her own lifetime. And the newsroom then ran on typewriters, so it's not like Liquid Paper would've be an obscure topic.
Her story of invention is fascinating enough on its own -- a divorced single mother hacking something to make her job easier, reading books on her own to learn the chemistry, implementing it in her kitchen at night, then getting fired when her boss finds out she has a side-gig. But even more remarkable, she actually succeeded. Unlike a lot of inventors, she got to reap the benefits of her hard work and brilliance, including owning her own company (even fighting off her ex-husband's attempt to steal it) and becoming wealthy. That her death wouldn't be noticeable for an obit (again, at a newspaper that has thousands of typewriters) is really surprising even if you think 1980 had the same social standards as 1930.
Not interested in getting into a gender bias/history debate (I think most of us can agree that there was inequality decades ago), but I was genuinely surprised that the NYT in 1980 wouldn't have written an obit for Graham at the time of her death. Her life has all the facets of a great interesting story, and she was wealthy in her own lifetime. And the newsroom then ran on typewriters, so it's not like Liquid Paper would've be an obscure topic.
Her story of invention is fascinating enough on its own -- a divorced single mother hacking something to make her job easier, reading books on her own to learn the chemistry, implementing it in her kitchen at night, then getting fired when her boss finds out she has a side-gig. But even more remarkable, she actually succeeded. Unlike a lot of inventors, she got to reap the benefits of her hard work and brilliance, including owning her own company (even fighting off her ex-husband's attempt to steal it) and becoming wealthy. That her death wouldn't be noticeable for an obit (again, at a newspaper that has thousands of typewriters) is really surprising even if you think 1980 had the same social standards as 1930.
FWIW, Wikipedia has had an entry for her since 2004: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bette_Nesmith_Graham