Once upon a time there was the typewriter.....
We live in a world of texting at our fingertips; typing on a keyboard that often corrects our spelling errors and most likely owning a myriad of electronic devices that make communicating the written word seamless and effortless.
But let's step back in time to the days of the manual typewriter - a machine that possessed none of the above! The Smith Brothers helped changed the world with typewriters!
However, before the Smith brothers launched into the world of typewriters, they manufactured firearms. They noticed that some of the mechanical processes and manufacturing techniques employed at the firearms factory mirrored those present in the emerging production of typewriters, Alexander T. Brown, an inventor working for the brothers, approached them with his own mechanical typewriter design.
In 1886, Lyman Cornelius (LC) Smith, Wilbert Smith, Hurlbut W. (HW) Smith, and Monroe C. Smith founded the Smith Premier Typewriter Company, in order to produce Brown's forward-thinking dual-case typewriter design.
The Smith brothers' typewriter business went through some reconfigurations and changes to its name in the decades that followed, and, in 1926, L. C. Smith & Bros. merged with the Corona Typewriter Company. The combination of LC Smith's durable office typewriters and Corona's popular portable machines made the new firm an industry leader and helped them to remain profitable even during the Great Depression.
Smith Corona ushered in the electric typewriter craze after WWII, when it produced the world's first portable electric typewriter. Throughout the 1950s and 60s, Smith Corona continued to pursue new innovations in communication technology.
It led the way in the word processing industry, creating spell-check and other technologies that were later used in personal computers. Unfortunately, the PC revolution virtually eliminated the need for the product that had made Smith Corona famous and several restructurings and buyouts resulted. As the typewriter market collapsed in the 1980s-2000s, Smith Corona's leadership looked for a new product line and found that it was a natural transition to bring our expertise at putting ink on paper to the thermal label industry.
Today, Smith Corona has poured its print know-how into the label market. The result is innovative, long-lasting thermal labels at surprisingly low prices. No one knows labels like Smith Corona. And since we manage our supply chain in-house, we avoid the middlemen and pass on incredible savings to our customers.
Fast-forward to 2019, and Smith Corona has now established itself as an industry leader in production of blank 4x6 labels. In fact, Smith Corona is now the largest thermal label maunfacturer that makes their own adhesive and sells factory direct. With a facility over 600,000 sqft. in size, more than 15 printing presses, and 2 adhesive kettles, Smith Corona is poised to dominate the thermal label market for years to come.