n.a technique for making multiple copies of a document by pressing ink through holes in a master onto paperLong and Wilson 1913The stencil process is employed both for the reproduction of handwriting and typewriting. It gives excellent facsimile copies of both, but most people nowadays use this form of duplicator in conjunction with the typewriter, which is unquestionably the method whereby the best results are obtained. ¶ A stencil is a prepared wax sheet, protected usually by a front tissue sheet. Perforations are made through the wax sheet either by means of the special stylus (employed for handwriting reproductions) or by the type of the typewriter. When the perforations have been made, the wax sheet is placed in the frame or on the cylinder of the duplicator (depending on whether the duplicator be a flat or rotary pattern), the paper is placed under the sheet, and copies are made by passing an inked roller over the sheet, or by the turning of the crank which rotates the cylinder, in the case of the rotary pattern.Proudfoot 1972, 12Nevertheless the invention and development of the stencil process during the last quarter of the nineteenth century and the adoption by the commercial world of that time was an event of the greatest importance in the history of the office.Rhodes and Streeter 1999, 137Stencil process: Common ingenuity did not overcome the difficulties of stencil printing until some six decades later, but Mr. Cumberland proved to be correct in his support of the paper stencil. His suggestion that corrosive ink could be used for stencil cutting was also right on target. The earliest commercially successful stencil duplicating process, Eugenio de Zuccato’s Papyrograph, combined both these elements. Rotary stencil duplicators also found a niche in schools and universities (alongside spirit duplicators), for the circulation of syllabi, tests, assignments, newsletters, and other matter which needed to be circulated in an inexpensive and timely manner.Batterham 2008, 70Although there were a variety of stencil processes, there is no great difference among the products of the processes. Stencil copying was used almost exclusively for correspondence and short-run copying of other textual material. In early processes, this was often handwritten but later was generally typewritten.
Notes
Duplicating machines employing the stencil process were very common in the twentieth century. Brands included Mimeograph (which has become a generic term for stencil duplicating machines) and Gestetner.
