page_title: Whiteboard
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Whiteboard / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Door sign to the offices of Magiboards at The Cut in Waterloo, London, in 1966. Made of enamelled steel
context_page_description: A whiteboard is a glossy, usually white surface for making nonpermanent markings. Whiteboards are analogous to blackboards, but with a smoother surface allowing rapid marking and erasing of markings on their surface. The popularity of whiteboards increased rapidly in the mid-1990s and they have become a fixture in many offices, meeting rooms, school classrooms, and other work environments.
  The term whiteboard is also used metaphorically to refer to features of computer software applications that simulate whiteboards. Such "virtual tech whiteboards" allow one or more people to write or draw images on a simulated canvas. This is a common feature of many virtual meeting, collaboration, and instant messaging applications. The term whiteboard is also used to refer to interactive whiteboards.
context_section_description: Two men have been credited with the invention of the whiteboard. The first is a Korean War veteran and photographer named Martin Heit and the other an enameled steel production company (Alliance) employee named Albert Stallion.
  Whiteboards became commercially available in the early 1960s, but did not become widely used until 30 years later. Early whiteboards needed to be wiped with a damp cloth and markers had a tendency to leave marks behind, even after erasing the board. Dry-erase markers for whiteboards were invented in 1975.
  Whiteboards started becoming commonly used by businesses in the early 1990s. They became more common in classrooms during the 1990s due to concerns over health problems in children with dust allergies and the potential for chalk dust to damage computers. By the late 1990s, about 21% of American classrooms had converted from chalkboards to whiteboards.
caption: Door sign to the offices of Magiboards at The Cut in Waterloo, London, in 1966. Made of enameled steel
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