Invention Of Rolodex ®

At once a design classic and a desktop accessory that has remained popular even in the computer age, the Rolodex brand card file was invented by Arnold Neustadter in 1952 and successfully marketed for the first time in 1958.

Arnold Naustadter (USA) was a man with a mission - he wanted to create the perfect "dex": he used "dex" as a suffix for numerous inventions, all of them relating to office desks and to the storage and organization of information. During the 1930s he invented his first "dex" a telephone directory that he called the Autodex®. The user moved a telephone type dial to the appropriate letter of the alphabet, and the spring-powered Autodex would pop open at the relevant page. Compared with what was to come, the Autodex was a modest success, but it was enough to encourage Neustadter to establish a company, which he caller Zephyr American, in order to manufacture and market his inventions.

Autodex was followed by a spill-proof inkwell called the Swivodex, and then came the Punchodex, for punching holes in paper, and the Clipodex, a device that clipped to the knee of a typist or secretary to help in taking dictation. Then, in the 1940s Neustadter invented a revolving card cylinder that he called Wheeldex. Office life changed forever in 1952 when he and engineer Hildaur Nielson (USA) improved the Wheeldex, which evolved into the classic Rolodex: a card filing system that rotated on a cylinder, giving instant access to any one of scores of slotted cards that snapped into place on the cylinder hub.

The simple, elegant design of the Rolodex was an engineering and aesthetic mini-masterpiece. The card-wheel was suspended over the base on a tabular steel, cantilevered frame, and the Rolodex was ergonomically designed with not one but two perfectly sized knurled knobs to rotate the cylinder, making the Rolodex as easy to use for the left-handed as for the right. Despite its eminent practicability and up-to-the-minute Fifties' design, sales were slow at first. Then a combination of good marketing and its use by Jack Lemmon in the film The Apartment made the Rolodex de rigueur for office desks, and it has remained popular ever since.

Source - The Book Of Inventions by Ian Harrison