Joseph Chamberlain Wilson (1909-1971) was the manager of the Haloid Company which, through Wilson's vision, bought the rights to developing the process later called xerography and became, in 1961, the Xerox Corporation. Xerography revolutionized the world of office management in the 1960s.

Joseph Chamberlain Wilson was born on December 19, 1909, in Rochester, New York. His grandfather, also named Joseph C. Wilson, settled in the city in the late 19th century and in 1903 helped found M. H. Kuhn Co., which in 1906 became the Haloid Company, and still later would become the Xerox Corporation. The elder Wilson was absorbed with politics, serving as alderman, city treasurer, and mayor, so management of the firm devolved upon his son, Joseph R. Wilson.

The name haloid referred to chemicals known as halogens, salts of which are used in the making of conventional photographic emulsions. During the 1920s the firm undertook extensive research to find a...