Mimeographs, along with spirit duplicators and hectographs, were common technologies for printing small quantities of a document, as in office work, classroom materials, and church bulletins. For even smaller quantities, up to about five, a typist would use carbon paper.
Comparatively,
we’re so spoiled!
They called them spirit duplicators because they used alcohol :o
The ink was purple and smelled weird. You could always tell when the teacher had run off the copies (we sometimes called them dittos) right before class.