Bette Graham—overlooked no more

The New York Times just published an obituary of Bette Graham, who invented Liquid Paper, “the correction fluid that relieved secretaries and writers around the world from the pressure of perfection.”

Bette Graham died in 1980. However, her obituary is part of the newspaper’s Overlooked program. Since 1851, The New York Times explains, its obituaries have been dominated by white men. Now the newspaper is “adding the stories of remarkable people whose deaths went unreported in The Times.”

I knew Bette Graham because I worked for Liquid Paper. She was, indeed, a remarkable woman, and I am pleased that she is no longer “overlooked.”

“Most men are ignorant,” Bette Graham once said. “They don’t really understand. And so women have to just keep on with their determination and be relentless. We have to not relent.”
–Joy