Editing Duplicating machines (section)

==Hectographs==

{{main|Hectograph}}
The [[hectograph]] introduced in 1876 or shortly before, was a technology in which a dye-impregnated master copy, not unlike a spirit master, was laid on top of a cake pan full of firm gelatin. After the dye soaked into the gelatin, sheets of paper could be laid on top of the gelatin to transfer the image. This was good for 50 copies at most. Hectography was slow and clunky, but it could inspire great intrepidity in its users.{{elucidate|date=September 2019}}

While good-quality, reasonably rapid copies from a hectograph require fairly specific materials (Aniline dye is the most effective), passable copies can be produced from a bewildering array of improvised materials on makeshift equipment. Practically speaking, any dye that soaks into the gelatin and can then be drawn out by the available paper will work. This meant that improvised hectography assumed the role of reproducing nearly every sort of censored material from subversive literature to pornography. {{elucidate|date=August 2011}}