But in one office this monotonous task of writing and rewriting the same names over and over again became such a hardship that the man who had to do it, thinking twenty-five years ahead of his time, had a vision of performing such work mechanically. That vision was the forerunner of the Addressograph.

In the early 90's, Mr. Joseph 3. Duncan was manager of a little flour and grist mill in Iowa. The requirements of his business necessitated the daily addressing of 100 quotation cards. Those were the days of pen and ink and the imperfectly developed typewriter. Mr. Duncan's office was small. He was the sole worker in that office - and as the typewriter was still a curiosity in that section of the country, Mr. Duncan was obliged to depend upon pen and ink in addressing his daily price cards. This routine task wasted a great deal of his valuable time each day. In an effort to finish the work quickly, so that he could devote his attention to more important matters, Mr. Duncan found that he was frequently sacrificing accuracy for speed. Result - his concern often suffered considerable loss of profit because his quotation cards did not reach the people for whom they were intended. Finally, becoming disgusted with inefficient and inaccurate pen and ink addressing methods, Mr. Duncan made a trip to Chicago for the purpose of purchasing a machine for addressing his price cards. But, on visiting the leading stationery and office equipment stores, he was told there was no such machine. He returned to his office resigned to the task of addressing his 100 daily quotation cards by pen and ink. But the drudgery and monotony of this work would not down in his mind. The mistakes and omissions made in addressing these price cards became no less frequent. Finally, because Mr. Duncan could no longer be reconciled to the drudgery, inaccuracy and expense of hand addressing, he determined to build for himself a machine that would lift from his shoulders this monotonous task.