Inventions often seem remarkably simple in hindsight and, not only are they often taken for granted, but the systems they have replaced may now seem incomprehensible.
 

When Samuel Moore was fêted at Toronto's Royal York Hotel on his 75th birthday, The Financial Post described him as one whose career had "outshone that of Horatio Alger's most ambitious boy wonder."' [Photo, courtesy Moore Corporation]

Samuel Moore did not invent the concept of the business form, but when he saw it, he knew what to do with it. He quickly recognized the revolution it would have on administrative procedures, the enormous effect on the commercial flow of sales transactions, and the strong impact on modern business management. Samuel Moore latched onto a concept that not only became one of the foundations of the "Gospel of Efficiency" but also helped define the Progressive era of late nineteenth century North America. He introduced a mass-produced stationery form that slashed time and money from the cost of doing business, and, in doing so, built an international empire based in Toronto. Samuel John Moore was born in England on August 3, 1859 and was only a youngster when his parents, Isaac and Louisa (Chapman), settled in Barrie, Ontario. Samuel's introduction as a "printer's devil" at the tender age of 12 took place at the Barrie Examiner newspaper, where he eventually became a local editor before setting out to find his fortune in Texas at the age of 20. When Samuel returned to Canada, he soon formed a partnership with J.W. Bengough to publish. Grip, the satirical paper that lampooned Canadian, politics through Moore's pen and Bengough's cartoons. In 1882, John R. Carter, a drygoods store clerk, wandered into Bengough, Moore & Co., Printers and Publishers, and showed Samuel a simple sales book in which a sheet of carbon paper inserted between two pages could give both customer and store proprietor a record of a transaction. Business would never be the same.

In a rapidly expanding urban economy, the means by which accounts were kept and invoices made required a legion of bookkeepers, copyists, and clerks for mundane and repetitive paperwork. The invention of carbon copy and mass-produced sales slips and business forms had an impact similar to that of the typewriter and the copy machine on later evolutions in the business world.

Samuel Moore pioneered a consortium of companies in Canada, the U.S., and around the world (Britain and Australia) which designed, printed, and bound a wide range of business forms to serve diverse purposes. By 1929 a major network of Moore companies had emerged as Moore Corporation Limited, the largest producer of business forms in the world.

In 1934, at the 50th anniversary of the salesbook industry, the scope of Moore's initiative was reflected in the statement by the Sales Book Manufacturers Association president that the industry "is the reflection of the vision and energy of Samuel J. Moore." He went on to laud the career of the industry's most enthusiastic advocate: "Mr. Moore proved himself, a master salesman, as well cis a capable organiser and an efficient manufacturer. He was both a correct interpreter of events and the apostle of an idea."

The abundantly successful enterprise spawned interests in other endeavours, including directorships of numerous companies. Of one of these, the Metropolitan Bank of Canada, he was a founder in 1902. The bank was later merged into The Bank of Nova Scotia where Moore served cis President, Chairman of the Board, and eventually Honorary Chairman.

Samuel Moore's business life was intertwined with his devout volunteerism both as a layman in the Baptist Church and an organizer in the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA). In the heady days of building the YMCA into one of North America's foremost institutions, Moore chaired the international convention in Toronto in 1894 and was elected a life member. In 1911 Moore underwrote a world tour by John R. Mott to organize the World Student Christian Federation. Mott later went on to found the World Missionary Conference, to help found the World Council of Churches, and to win a Nobel Peace Prize. In 1963 the S.I. Moore Educational Scholarship was endowed in Moore's memory by the YMCA.

For more than 35 years, Moore found time in his busy schedule to assist the Baptist Church. He superintended Toronto's Dovercourt Baptist Church Sunday School, chaired the Layman's Missionary Conference in 1909, sat on the executive board of the Baptist World Alliance in 1911, and presided over the Baptist Convention of Ontario and Quebec in 1920.

Samuel Moore always kept a motto clipped and pasted in the front of his constant companion, the Bible. It read "'Consult Wisely, Resolve Firmly and Execute with Inflexible Perseverance.

At the establishment of the YMCA S.J. Moore Educational Award in 1963, Arthur G. Walwyn acclaimed Moore as "a great Canadian Christian, an eminently successful business man and one whose life was a great example and inspiration to all who knew him."'

Larry Turner