Addressograph

In 1896, the first U.S. patent for an addressing machine, the Addressograph was issued to Joseph Smith Duncan of Sioux City, Iowa.

The "Baby O" model was put into production on July 26, 1893, in a small back room of the old Caxton Building in Chicago, Illinois.

[3] An Addressograph system of the 1960s was essentially a Graphotype debossing machine for preparing address plates, a cassette-style plate feeder, a heavy-duty, rapidly moving inked ribbon, a platten for hand-feeding the mail piece, and a foot pedal for stamping the address.

The plate assemblies were placed in steel cassettes resembling library card catalogue drawers, which were manually inserted into the machine.

At the press of the foot pedal, the plate assemblies were swapped in sequence in a similar fashion to a slide projector, placing an impression of the raised type onto the mail piece.