Post 6: The Typewriter

 The History Of The Type Writer

"There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed" - Ernest Hemmingway

A Brief Timeline

  The typewriter has evolved greatly since its humble beginnings, and while now in modern times is seen more as "antique" or "dated" used to be the peak of technology. The first known patent for the typer writer can be traced back to 1714 with Henry Mills' "Machine for Transcribing Letters". There is very little known about this machine, mostly because it never reached large-scale production, so because of these many attributes Christopher Latham Sholes' typewriter as the "first typewriter".

Sholes developed his first typewriter in 1867, which was only able to type in capital letters, and a few years and tweaks later the first commercial typewriter would be manufactured by the Remington company and would have the capability to type in upper and lowercase. The addition of more keys however would cause the machine to jam, leading Sholes to create the QWERTY keyboard that is still used in technology today - even on your mobile phones and laptops. 

The first typewriter with a resemblance to the more modern design we know of today was the 1896 Underwood 1, designed by Frank Xaver Wagner. According to an article on BT.com titled "From the ‘writing machine’ to the computer keyboard: The evolution of the typewriter" this typewriter had "the four-row keyboard, front key-striking (allowing people to see what they were typing) and a shift key allowing for capital letters." Some other notable advancements in typewriter engineering and production was Wellington Parker Kidder's “noiseless” typewriter design in 1917 that was and marketed by the Noiseless Typewriter Company as well as the IBM Model 01 which was the first successful electric model typewriter. Electric typewriters began to gain prominence between the World Wars and by the turn of the 20th-century typewriters were commonplace in workplaces across the country.

Profound Impacts

The introduction of the typewriter into the American workplace streamlined efficiency as well as productivity. According to smithsonianeducation.org, "The typewriter, by reducing the time and expense involved in creating documents, encouraged the spread of systematic management. It allowed a system of communications that shaped the business world." 

The implementation of the typewriter also spurred the integration of women into the workforce. While men were abroad fighting in the world wars, women who previously had not worked before were finding themselves working grueling factory jobs. These office jobs were cleaner, safer, and p[aid better and soon became very enticing to working-class women. By 1890, there were nearly 45,000 female office workers, and 64 percent of stenographers and typists were women.

References

• https://typewriters.com/blogs/blog/making-a-comeback-11-shocking-facts-on-the-history-of-typewriters
• https://www.britannica.com/technology/typewriter
• https://home.bt.com/tech-gadgets/computing/accessories/from-the-writing-machine-to-the-computer-keyboard-the-evolution-of-the-typewriter-11363991455145
• https://historythings.com/life-changing-invention-typewriters/
• http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/idealabs/ap/essays/looking6.htm