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TYPEWRITER

The document summarizes the history and development of the typewriter from its earliest conceptualization in the 18th century through the widespread adoption of the QWERTY keyboard design in the late 19th/early 20th century. It describes key early models including the 1808 typewriter invented for the blind Countess Carolina Fantoni da Fivizzano, the 1870 "writing ball" created by Rasmus Malling-Hansen, and the iconic 1873 Sholes & Glidden typewriter which introduced the QWERTY keyboard layout still used today. The document also discusses the transition from early "blind" or understroke models to the frontstroke design popularized by machines like the 1895 Underwood No. 5.

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159 views6 pages

TYPEWRITER

The document summarizes the history and development of the typewriter from its earliest conceptualization in the 18th century through the widespread adoption of the QWERTY keyboard design in the late 19th/early 20th century. It describes key early models including the 1808 typewriter invented for the blind Countess Carolina Fantoni da Fivizzano, the 1870 "writing ball" created by Rasmus Malling-Hansen, and the iconic 1873 Sholes & Glidden typewriter which introduced the QWERTY keyboard layout still used today. The document also discusses the transition from early "blind" or understroke models to the frontstroke design popularized by machines like the 1895 Underwood No. 5.

Uploaded by

Magr Esca
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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The concept of a typewriter dates back at least to 1714, when Englishman Henry Mill

filed a vaguely-worded patent for "an artificial machine or method for the impressing
or transcribing of letters singly or progressively one after another." But the first
typewriter proven to have worked was built by the Italian Pellegrino Turri in 1808 for
his blind friend Countess Carolina Fantoni da Fivizzano; unfortunately, we do not
know what the machine looked like, but we do have specimens of letters written by
the Countess on it. (For details, see Michael Adler's excellent 1973 book The Writing
Machine. Carey Wallace's 2010 novel The Blind Contessa's New Machine is based on
the relationship between the Countess and Turri.)

Numerous inventors in Europe and the U.S. worked on typewriters in the 19th
century, but successful commercial production began only with the "writing ball" of
Danish pastor RasmusMalling-Hansen (1870). This well-engineered device looked
rather like a pincushion. Nietzsche's mother and sister once gave him one for
Christmas. He hated it.

Much more influential, in the long run, was the Sholes & Glidden Type Writer, which
began production in late 1873 and appeared on the American market in 1874.

Christopher L. Sholes, a Milwaukee newspaperman, poet, and


part-time inventor, was the main creator of this machine. The Sholes & Glidden typed
only in capital letters, and it introduced the QWERTY keyboard, which is very much
with us today. The keyboard was probably designed to separate frequently-used pairs
of typebars so that the typebars would not clash and get stuck at the printing point.
The S&G was a decorative machine, boasting painted flowers and decals. It looked
rather like a sewing machine, as it was manufactured by the sewing machine
department of the Remington arms company. For an in-depth look at this historic
device, visit Darryl Rehr's Web site "The First Typewriter."

The Sholes & Glidden had limited success, but its successor, the Remington, soon
became a dominant presence in the industry.

The Sholes & Glidden, like many early typewriters, is an understroke or "blind"
writer: the typebars are arranged in a circular basket under the platen (the printing
surface) and type on the bottom of the platen. This means that the typist (confusingly
called a "typewriter" herself in the early days) has to lift up the carriage to see her
work. Another example of an understroketypebar machine is the Caligraph of 1880,
the second typewriter to appear on the American market.

This Caligraph has a "full" keyboard -- separate keys for lower- and upper-case
letters. Click here to read more about the Caligraph.
The Smith Premier (1890) is another example of a full-keyboard understroke
typewriter which was very popular in its day. Click here to read more and see the
machine.

The QWERTY keyboard came to be called the "Universal" keyboard, as the


alternative keyboards fought a losing battle against the QWERTY momentum. (For
more on QWERTY and to learn why "QWERTY is cool," visit Darryl Rehr'ssiteThe
QWERTY Connection.) But not all early typewriters used the QWERTY system, and
many did not even type with typebars. Case in point: the ingenious Hammond,
introduced in 1884. The Hammond came on the scene with its own keyboard, the two-
row, curved "Ideal" keyboard -- although Universal Hammonds were also soon made
available. The Hammond prints from a type shuttle -- a C-shaped piece of vulcanized
rubber. The shuttle can easily be exchanged when you want to use a different
typeface. There is no cylindrical platen as on typebar typewriters; the paper is hit
against the shuttle by a hammer.

The Hammond gained a solid base of loyal customers. These well-engineered


machines lasted, with a name change to Varityper and electrification, right up to the
beginning of the word-processor era.
Other machines typing from a single type element rather than typebars included the
gorgeous Crandall (1881) ...

... and the practical Blickensderfer.


The effort to create a visible rather than "blind" machine led to many ingenious ways
of getting the typebars to the platen. Examples of early visible writers include
the Williams and the Oliver. The Daugherty Visible of 1891 was the first frontstroke
typewriter to go into production: the typebars rest below the platen and hit the front of
it. With the Underwood of 1895, this style of typewriter began to gain ascendancy.
The most popular model of early Underwoods, the #5, was produced by the millions.
By the 1920s, virtually all typewriters were "look-alikes": frontstroke, QWERTY,
typebar machines printing through a ribbon, using one shift key and four banks of
keys. (Some diehards lingered on. The huge Burroughs Moon-Hopkins typewriter and
accounting machine was a blind writer that was manufactured, amazingly enough,
until the late 1940s.)
Let's return for a moment to the 19th century. The standard price for a typewriter was
$100 -- several times the value of a good personal computer today, when we adjust for
inflation. There were many efforts to produce cheaper typewriters. Most of these
were index machines: the typist first points at a letter on some sort of index, then
performs another motion to print the letter. Obviously, these were not heavy-duty
office machines; they were meant for people of limited means who needed to do some
occasional typing. An example is the "American" index typewriter, which sold for $5.
Index typewriters survived into the 20th century as children's toys; one commonly
found example is the "Dial" typewriter made by Marx Toys in the 1920s and 30s.

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