April 16: The Rolodex

Arnold Neustadter, who partnered with a self-taught Danish engineer, Hildaur Neilson, to invent the Rolodex, died on this date in 1996 at 85. Neustadter was the son of a box manufacturer and founder of Zephyr American, a company that also created the Autodex, a phone directory gadget, the Swivodex, an inkwell that did not spill, the Punchodex, a paper hole puncher, and the Clipodex, a device that attached to a stenographer’s knee. The enduring product was the Rolodex, launched in the 1950s, which became so ubiquitous that it needs no description. Even with the advent of the personal computer, close to 10 million Rolodexes are sold each year. Neustadter became a philanthropist and art collector, with a collection that included works by Chagall, Picasso and Henry Moore.

“He was a very organized man. He was always one for advancing things that he thought were done in a clumsy way.” —Dorothy Neustadter