The Amazing Writing Machine

By Suzanne Norquist

Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1440. It made mechanical printing possible. However, it took over four centuries for typewriters to become an office staple.

Many inventors are credited with developing early drawings or prototypes. Those ideas went through numerous iterations, each improving on the last, before the machine we know as the typewriter finally emerged. Then the Industrial Revolution brought them to the masses.

Francesco Rampazetto documented the first version of the typewriter in Italy in 1575. His machine pressed ink into paper. In 1714, Henry Mill filed a patent in England for something that could be a typewriter. It impressed inked letters one after another.

A very early version was the Columbia Typewriter. Instead of a keyboard, the user would turn a dial to the desired letter and press a button—a slow process. (Think label maker.) This kind of device found some commercial success among users who had limited printing needs.

People with visual impairment also found it helpful. It is said that in the 1810s, Italian Pellegrino Turri designed and built one of the first of this kind of typewriters for his blind friend Countess Carolina Fantoni da Fivizzano.

In 1829, William Austin Burt, an American, patented the Typographer. It operated on a similar concept but was bigger.

Numerous others worked on the idea, but the Hansen Writing Ball was the first commercially produced typing machine. Rev. Rasmus Malling-Hansen invented it in 1865, and it went into production in 1870 with several enhancements over the next ten years. The ball looked like a giant brass pincushion with fifty-two keys.

The typewriter we recognize today was invented in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1868, and began production in 1873. Christopher Latham Sholes, Frank Haven Hall, Carlos Glidden, and Samuel W. Soule collaborated on the effort.

Sholes, the primary inventor, was a newspaper editor. He had spent time in a machine shop and liked to tinker. His prototype included random parts like piano wire, a telegraph key, and part of an old table. The user typed on piano keys to operate the machine.

Before production, the inventors made improvements. They created mechanisms to regulate the carriage's movement, hold the paper, and rotate the ink ribbon.

The resulting typewriters were beautiful with flowers painted on the front. They resembled sewing machines of the day.

The patent was sold to Remington Arms, which produced them in its sewing machine factories.

The QWERTY keyboard, the design used by computers and cell phones today, was one of the machine's main features. The name QWERTY is a list of the first six letters across. Rumor has it that this layout slowed down typists to prevent keys from jamming.

Others have tried to introduce different keyboard layouts. However, so many people learned touch typing with this arrangement that it was difficult for anyone else to break through.

Not everyone embraced this new technology. Typed documents seemed impersonal or could be easily forged. Typewriters were considered luxury items.

Early machines only typed in capital letters. One solution to this problem was to include two complete sets of keys, one uppercase and one lowercase. The Caligraph machine is an example.

The Remington 2 employed a “shift” key that literally shifted all the keys to a different location.

Another problem was that typists couldn’t see the document while typing. The paper was hidden below the line of sight. The Underwood typewriter remedied this problem by moving the roller up to where the typist could see it, and others followed suit.

Electric typewriters followed. And word processing machines. And computers. And cell phones. When I took typing class in the seventh grade, my dad said typing was only for secretaries. He had no idea how the skill would serve me in the computer age.

The typewriter was more than a machine. It also served the cause of women’s suffrage. Women could find work in offices and even own a business with its help. They aided novelists. Mark Twain was one of the first to use the “new-fangled writing machine.”

We’ve come a long way since the invention of the printing press and the development of the QWERTY keyboard. I still write longhand sometimes, but this blog wouldn’t exist without the machine.

***

 

Love In Bloom 4-in-one collection

“A Song for Rose” by Suzanne Norquist

Can a disillusioned tenor convince an aspiring soprano that there is more to music than fame?

“Holly & Ivy” by Mary Davis

At Christmastime, a young woman accompanies her impetuous younger sister on her trip across the country to be a mail-order bride and loses her heart to a gallant stranger.

“Periwinkle in the Park” by Kathleen E. Kovach

A female hiking guide, who is helping to commission a national park, runs into conflict with a mountain man determined to keep the government off his land.

“A Beauty in a Tansy”

Two adjacent store owners are drawn to each other, but their older relatives provide obstacles to their ever becoming close.

Republished from Bouquet of Brides

Buy links: https://books2read.com/u/bOOx8K

https://www.amazon.com/Love-Bloom-Mary-Davis/dp/B0FPLFYCXR/

 

 

Suzanne Norquist is the author of two novellas. Everything fascinates her. She has worked as a chemist, professor, financial analyst, and even earned a doctorate in economics. Research feeds her curiosity, and she shares the adventure with her readers. She lives in New Mexico with her mining engineer husband and has two grown children. When not writing, she explores the mountains, hikes, and attends kickboxing class.

 

A History of Type

By Kathy Kovach

What can one say about typewriters? Plenty since they were invented in the 18th century. Over the years the typewriter evolved, eventually morphing into the computer keyboard we know today.

In 1714, English inventor Henry Mill worked at the New River Water Works Company as Engineer-in-Chief. He patented a machine made for "impressing writing on parchment." Alas, no illustrations or models of this first typewriter exist. For whatever reason, Mill never developed it. Following is the wording of the original patent:

One hundred and fifty years later, in 1865, Danish inventor Rev. Rasmus Malling-Hansen came up with a version of a typewriter that doesn't look like the model which has became popular over the centuries. It's known as the Hansen Writing Ball. Although Malling-Hansen made improvements and won first prize in two world exhibitions, his invention nearly disappeared from annals of history.

A mere three years later, American Christopher Latham Sholes went on to produce fifty machines but failed to sell them. He took his idea to gun manufacturer Philo Remington and sold the production rights. A year later, the first typewriter was made available by E. Remington & Sons, and another year saw an upgrade featuring both upper and lower case letters. It was named the Remington 2. Sholes was dubbed "The Father of the Typewriter" despite the efforts of those before him.

After another decade, John Thomas Underwood, a competitor of Remington's, bought the rights from inventor Franz Xavior Wagner for a more practical "front

stroke" machine. The US Navy ordered 250 Underwood typewriters, and their popularity soared. By 1915, Underwood employed 7,500 workers and produced 500 typewriters daily.

Sholes had originally intended the machine to print page numbers on books, but it was lawyer and inventor Carlos Glidden who suggested adding letters. At first, the letters were laid out alphabetically, but consumers complained of keys sticking. If you'll recall, the keys were wire rods that struck the paper when pressed. Common letters like "a" and "e" would often tangle and slow down the process. Glidden suggested moving letters around for more proficiency, and thus, the QWERTY keyboard was born, named so for the first six letters on the top row.

Here are some fun facts:

• Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer was the first novel written on a typewriter.
• The word "qwertyuiop" now appears in the Oxford English dictionary.
• Sholes had expressed the thought that a typewriter could help women enter the workplace, replacing male clerks. Way to go, Christopher!

Another fun fact includes an actor popular today, Tom Hanks. A passionate collector of typewriters, Hanks professes to have owned hundreds in his lifetime. He started collecting at age nineteen and is still vocal about the importance of vintage and modern typewriters. So passionate, in fact, he has published a collection of short stories entitled Uncommon Type: Some Stories, centered around the typewriter and its impact on his life. Disclaimer: I read the first story and it's rated...um...shall we say TVMA? Proceed with caution. However, the following two links should be safe. He shares his love of these machines with enthusiasm and humor.

Tom Hanks, typewriter enthusiast - YouTube

Tom Hanks: Uncommon Type [CC] - YouTube

As I type on my computer, I recall the days of tapping away on my first Royal Typewriter when I was a child. I upgraded through the years, moving on to an IBM Selectric with the font ball that reminds me of the Hansen Writing Ball. Then on to a word processor which showed four lines of type before one committed it to paper. Like magic! 

Then the computer. First DOS, where I had to put in code when I wanted it to shift, tab, or return. And then, FINALLY, Word was invented. I have joked I couldn't become a writer until Bill Gates created Microsoft. That being said, there's something to typing on a vintage machine. Hearing the clacks of the keys and the ding of the return carriage, the ratcheting of the rubber platen and the stinging paper cut when I yanked the paper out. 

In my book, Titanic: Legacy of Betrayal, one of the characters needs to write a memoir, a confession of sorts. She has severe arthritis and doesn't want to dictate her deepest, darkest secrets to another person. Find out how she by-stepped the typewriter and communicated with others a century later.

Titanic: Legacy of Betrayal

A secret. A key. Much was buried on the Titanic, but now it's time for resurrection.

Follow two intertwining stories a century apart. 1912 - Matriarch Olive Stanford protects a secret after boarding the Titanic that must go to her grave. 2012 - Portland real estate agent Ember Keaton-Jones receives the key that will unlock the mystery of her past... and her distrusting heart.

To buy: Amazon

Kathleen E. Kovach is a Christian romance author published traditionally through Barbour Publishing, Inc. as well as indie. Kathleen and her husband, Jim, raised two sons while living the nomadic lifestyle for over twenty years in the Air Force. Now planted in northeast Colorado, she's a grandmother, though much too young for that. Kathleen is a longstanding member of American Christian Fiction Writers. An award-winning author, she presents spiritual truths with a giggle, proving herself as one of God's peculiar people.

Website
Blog With A Giggle
CraftCinema

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Women Behind the Keys

My mother was an excellent typist and worked “keeping books” for my father’s several small businesses. It wasn’t long before I mimicked her, sitting at the typewriter-stand-on-wheels, pecking away at the keys.

During my junior year in high school, I took a night class for typing at the local college and, thereby, set the course of my life.

I’ve been typing – or keyboarding – ever since.

The keys that make my living.

I dare say that typing skills have served me in every job I’ve had, from secretary to schoolteacher, journalist to novelist. It’s difficult to imagine making it through life without the ability to type.

However, this specialized skill changed the course of more lives than mine, particularly that of women in the public workforce during the 1880s. As typists, women could do more than they had as telegraphers, clerks, and copyists in the previous decades.

Both men and women worked as typists, but they were not referred to as such. Research indicates that there were discrepancies in the spelling of typewriter or type-writer. Sources differ in their opinions as to which denoted the machine and which denoted the operator.

Newspaper articles of the day touted the type-writer as a great invention. By 1885, it was credited with expediting business and coming close to replacing the pen. The Remington Standard Type-Writer was heralded as the premier machine.

Remington had previously been associated with firearms (and sewing machines), and the company had several under its belt, including pistols, rifles, and shotguns.

William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody himself reportedly carried a Remington New Model Army .44 from 1863 to 1906.

We haven’t heard that he carried a typewriter.

Remington was founded in 1816 by Eliphalet Remington in Ilion, New York, and later became E. Remington and Sons in 1839. It was not the first company to produce a writing machine, but by 1873 became known for manufacturing the first successful commercial typewriter.

Another writing-machine company, Sholes and Glidden, sold their patent to financial backers Densmore and Yost who negotiated with E. Remington and Sons for production. Remington introduced Sholes’s QWERTY board in their model, and the Remington No. 2 of 1878 became a wildly successful typewriter with both upper- and lower-case letters accessed by a shift key.

Today it’s hard to imagine anything else.

Sholes & Glidden Type-Writer, invented by Christopher Latham Sholes, Carlos Glidden, and Samuel W. Soule in 1868, and manufactured by Remington & Sons, Ilion, New York, USA, between 1874 and 1878. This was the first typewriter to be manufactured commercially (about 5000 were made), the first to use the Universal or QWERTY keyboard which Sholes invented, and the first to be called a 'typewriter'; Sholes coined the term. The colorful flowery decorations may have been intended to appeal to women, who were entering the typist profession. Wikimedia Commons.

The QWERTY keyboard design was so named for the lineup of letters on the top letter row of keys, with other letters placed elsewhere based on frequency of use. With a few changes in other letter/character positions, it remains in use today with Latin-script alphabets. Wisconsin newspaper editor and printer Christopher Latham Scholes came up with the layout after earlier designs resulted in the jamming of keys.

Scholes's QWERTY, 1878. Wiki-Commons

The Remington typewriter was used in law offices, counting rooms, and mercantiles in European and American cities, employing young women with wages ranging from $12 to $15 per week. 

Even my old Oliver from 1914 has the QWERTY layout.

The abandoned heroine of my novel, An Unexpected Redemption, is one such young woman who finds employment as a type-writer in a Denver law firm and later in her hometown of Olin Springs, Colorado. Her not-so-portable Remington No. 2 model typewriter influences the course of her life, as does her other Remington, which you can read about here.

Funny, how a few little letters—and the ability to manipulate them—can change a person's life for the better.

~

Davalynn Spencer

Wife and mother of professional rodeo bullfighters, Davalynn Spencer can’t stop #lovingthecowboy. She writes Western romance with rugged heroes, teaches writing workshops, and plays a different keyboard on her church worship team – when she’s not wrangling Blue the Cowdog and mouse detectors Annie and Oakley. Connect with her at www.davalynnspencer.com.

Early Typists at Work

Do you know what makes me pause when reading historical fiction? When I'm immersed in a story and they mention a typewriter. I have no idea why I stop reading, except that it's hard to imagine that typewriters were invented one hundred years prior to my first clack of the keys. I taught myself to type on a portable typewriter when I was twelve years old, and it formed a large part of my teen years as I wrote my western stories. I was already a fast typist by the time I graduated to an electric machine, and then oh, the wonder, when I discovered one with a correction ribbon.

Speaking of ribbons, until World War II, typewriter ribbons were made of cotton which was durable and held ink well. They were made to be reused, so that once it had gone through to the end, it could be taken out, reversed, and put back in for another round. Over and over until the ink was faded and dry. Imagine if someone thought they had a buy a new spool of ribbon each time. It would get expensive, wouldn't it?

Man and woman in an unidentified office, 1903. Source: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

Various sources say that 52 mechanical inventions went into the typewriter we're most familiar with today. While researching the fascinating history of typewriters, I found dozens of websites with images and information, but most are protected under copyright laws. Hence, I've taken a different approach and would like to present interesting images of people working at their typewriters. 

The Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C. contains a wealth of great images including this 1891 photograph taken at the Lincoln cabin.

Picture of Mrs. Norah Gridley, cousin of Mrs. Abraham Lincoln, and Miss May Coleman, the typewriter, taken outside of and near the corner of the Lincoln Cabin, August 9/91. Source: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

Business schools with courses on typing, stenography, and duplicating machines were found in most major cities by the end of the 19th century, providing a respectable alternative to women who needed to work, but had no wish to join the domestic, medical, or educational trades. 

Typewriting department, National Cash Register, Dayton, Ohio, ca. 1902?. Dry Plate negative. Source: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

Since men had their hand in business far earlier than the women, and the above image shows a room full of women, I wonder if business classes were segregated by gender?

The man in this next glass negative would rather be a typewriter salesman in Beluchistan, than sit at a desk typing. We can see they are Remington typewriters, but we don't now which model. What do you think...one hump or two? 

American typewriter salesman in Beluchistan, [between 1909 and 1920], glass negative. Source: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

While on the topic of deliveries, what about a photograph of this young lad who carried his typewriter about half a mile. He looks to be straining a bit, but if he lugged two or three of those heavy beasts around all day, it would have done wonders for his physique. (Ahem, I am a romance writer after all.)

Louis A. Caulfield, 37 Belfort Street, Dorchester. Delivering a heavy type-writer about half a mile. Works for Model Typewriter Inspection Co. Says he is sixteen years old and gets $6 a week. Taken on Boston Common. Location: Boston, Massachusetts / Lewis W. Hine., January 1917. Source: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

I don't know the model of the typewriter in this next 1906 photograph, but a close look at the woman tells me she's using the 2-finger method of typing.

Young woman typing, c1906. Source: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

As mentioned at the start of this post, my interest in typewriters began when I was still a young girl. And then back in the 80's, I bought an old typewriter at an auction and then had to pack it away during a military move. After several moves, it's still packed away. I haven't had the heart to dig it out because I'm worried dampness has turned it into a rusty echo of what it used to be.

Instead, I appeased my recent typewriter craving by writing it into my new novella, Love in Store which is set in 1890 Montana. My heroine is the office worker in the family transport business and uses a Remington 2 typewriter, common in 1890, although I don't identify it as such in my story. It looks similar to the one in the 1892 photograph below and served as a great inspiration for my novella.

A pretty type[writer?] c1892. Photomechanical print. Source: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

There are more images of old typewriters on my Novella: Love in Store Pinterest storyboard.

I would love to hear your experience with a vintage manual typewriter. Care to share? 

To celebrate the release of my novella, Love in Store, which is one of nine novellas found in The Secret Admirer Romance Collection, I'm holding a Love in Store Prize Pack Giveaway on my website. The giveaway contains a print copy of the Collection, as well as other goodies.

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Anita Mae Draper writes her historical romances under the western skies of the Saskatchewan prairie where her love of research and genealogy yield fascinating truths that layer her stories with rich historical details. Her Christian faith is reflected in her stories of forgiveness and redemption as her characters struggle to find their way to that place we call home. Anita loves to correspond with her readers through any of the social media links found at www.anitamaedraper.com.

Readers can enrich their reading experience by checking out Anita's Pinterest boards for a visual idea of her published stories at www.pinterest.com/anitamaedraper.