Mid-Century
After the war, the company concentrated on making its typewriters more convenient and efficient for use in business offices. Typewriter sales peaked after World War II; in response to a demand for typewriters capable of faster output, Smith Corona introduced electric typewriters in 1955. Electric portables, intended for traveling writers and business people, but later widely purchased for general home use, were introduced in 1957. The new portable electric typewriters would become an essential tool for generations of U.S. high school and college students.
In a diversification move into the wider office technology sector, Smith Corona purchased the Kleinschmidt Corporation in 1956 and Marchant Calculator in 1958, changing its corporate name to Smith-Corona Marchant Inc.. Also in 1958, Smith Corona acquired British Typewriters, Ltd. of West Bromwich, England, a company that made small portable typewriters. The company invented the typewriter power carriage return in 1960, the same year it moved from Syracuse to Cortland, New York and opened new corporate headquarters on Park Avenue in New York City. 1960 also saw the company's first foray into the photocopier business with the Vivicopy range of machines, also the accounting machinery market with a range of punch card and tape products manufactured for it in Germany by Keinzle. Still on the acquisition trail, in 1961 SCM acquired the St. Louis Microstatic Company this merger giving rise to the Model 33 Electrostatic Copier which went on sale in April 1962.
Thus by the mid-1960s SCM had become a major supplier to the office equipment market, offering photocopiers, typewriters and calculating machines.
In 1962, Smith Corona changed its corporate name to SCM Corporation and adopted the tribar SCM logo. In 1967, SCM purchased the Allied Paper Corporation for $33 million. The new paper-making division was named SCM Allied Paper. In the same year, SCM also merged with The Glidden paint company. Glidden was reorganized as the Glidden-Durkee division of SCM. One reason for this merger was that Glidden saw SCM's bid as a "White Knight" bid in preference to an alternative offer from Greatamerica Corporation in Dallas, Texas and General Anniline & Film of New York. In its turn, the acquisition put the (now much larger) SCM itself beyond the reach of any potential hostile bidders of the time. It was also hoped that Glidden's research into paper coatings would be useful in SCM's copier business.
The "Letterpack" product of 1967 was a handset on which personal voice messages could be recorded on small tape cartridges which could be mailed to the recipient (who needed another handset to replay it). The cartridges lasted 3, 6 or 10 minutes, and a pair of handsets cost $70.
In 1971, SCM bought the consumer product company Proctor Silex, manufacturers of toasters and can-openers.
In 1973 a new typewriter manufacturing facility employing 1300 people was erected in Singapore.
Read more about this topic: Smith Corona, History
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—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)