The History of the Late 1800's Typewriter

Sholes & Glidden's 1874
Typewriter Prototype (10)

For centuries, humans have gradually weaned off of putting pen to paper as their primary writing/printing method in virtue of extraordinary gadgets. This varies all the way from the mystique that is Henry Mill's invention he called the "Machine for Transcribing Letters" in 1714, to Pellegrino Turri's "Writing Machine" (1808), William Burt's "Typographer" (1829), and Rasmus Malling-Hansen's "Writing Ball". (7) All of these devices are considered to have inspired the iconic "Sholes & Glidden Typewriter" patented in 1868 by three ingenious men with ties to the newspaper industry. Considered to be the first commercially successful variant, it was collaboratively invented by two newspaper-editors, Christopher Latham Sholes and Carlos Glidden, alongside Samuel W. Soule, a printer/inventor whose "escapement mechanism" invention was inserted into the typewriter to regulate its mechanical movements. Soule, too, provided a majority of the financial support. (1) However, when patented, the three inventors were unable to sell their creation on their own. That was until the company Remington and sons (who mainly manufactured firearms) purchased the patent and production rights to the typewriter, in spite its infancy—and nearly six years later, they renamed the product to “the Remington Typewriter” which hit the sales market on a larger scale. Another half-decade had passed, and in 1878, the Remington Model 2 debuted, transcending the device with its groundbreaking addition, the shift key. For nearly a decade up to that point in time, typewriters could either print either only capital letters or lowercase, but there had never been a key that alternated between the two. (2) Endless revisions ensued, but this model was unequivocally a staple within the typewriter's legacy

Qwerty Sketch (4)

QWERTY

The peculiar formation of letters that make up the “qwerty keyboard” is ubiquitous in modern-day society, whomever types is well-accustomed to it. Students in schools countrywide are taught with it, it's on our laptops and smartphones, but why qwerty? There are several theories that swirl around to this day, but the consensus is Scholes invented this specific arrangement of letters was to mitigate typing errors and improve the speeds of the typists. The early days of the typewriter, though revolutionary, had a glut of flaws, most notably its tendency to jam if two keys were simultaneously pressed down, delaying the typing process. (5) It is theorized that Scholes tried to solve this problem by separating common letter pairings from each other (such as T and H, E and S, etc.), which would force users to type from row-to-row, as opposed to side-by-side on the same row. However, research suggests there may be even more to the story. Researchers from Kyoto University, Koichi Yasuoka and Motoko Yasuoka, believe the layout originated from the telegraph, which in turn tailored to the liking of Morse code readers. Another theory is that of a marketing strategy, as the word “typewriter” itself can be typed among just a single row, showing a sense of ease niftiness. (4) 

Fun fact: This blog was typed on a qwerty keyboard.

Twain and his daughter
using the typewriter in
Collier's Magazine, 1945 (8)

The Typewriter in 19th Century Literature

The Remington took the market by storm, much to the likes of writers whose manuscripts had solely been written by hand up to that point. Renowned American author Mark Twain was no different. It is believed that he is was one of the first major authors to ever purchase a typewriter. Twain purchased a Remington Typewriter for $125 (see picture above) in 1874 shortly after they hit the market. (8) In fact, his iconic novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was the first novel ever written on a typewriter. However, it wasn't entirely typewritten. Not even a year into owning one, he wrote an angry letter to the Remington company where he renounced his usage of the product as its faultiness made him want to swear. However, years later he revisited the machine, and published several pieces with the typewriter as it progressed. (9) The typewriter is mentioned within Bram Stokers famous novel "Dracula," (which takes place circa 1890). Mina Murray, a female character, plays the role of a schoolmistress, and with the drive to appease/help her husband with his writing, she expresses her desire to become a typist:

"I want to keep up with Jonathan’s studies, and I have been practicing shorthand very assiduously. When we are married I shall be able to be useful to Jonathan, and if I can stenograph well enough I can take down what he wants to say in this way and write it out for him on the typewriter, at which also I am practicing very hard. He and I sometimes write letters in shorthand, and he is keeping a stenographic journal of his travels abroad." (11)

This reflects not only the prevalence of typewriters around the turn of the 19th century, but their roles as vehicles for innovation among women in the workforce.

Listing for Western Electric
Manufacturing Company, 1873 (6)

The Typewriter's Impact on Women in the 19th Century

The typewriter had a robust impact on women in the workplace in the late 1800's, possessing several empowering and limiting factors. Office work had mostly been dominated by men up to that point in time, but the introduction of the typewriter created an entirely new subset of office positions for women, primarily secretarial and clerical. This moved the needle where gender norms were concerned, opening the door for job opportunities beyond the "stay-at home" ones they were traditionally confined to. This empowered women in the sense that they were given a sense of independence in the workplace, as they earned their own wages, and eventually were in the gender majority where typists were concerned. It was considered to be a "female profession" as the task echoed feminine stereotypes that were neatness, delicacy, and savants of busywork. (6)

However, problems eventually arose, as the disparity in manual labor jobs between men and women persisted. While the typist position indeed provided a substantial job for women in the late 1800's, it eventually stifled them. The position had become so feminized, that typing became one of the only positions available. While it was a step in the right direction where equality was concerned, it eventually hit a wall. Job opportunities beyond sitting before a typewriter were minimal.

   

Sources

(1) HowStuffWorks. "How the Typewriter Works." HowStuffWorks, 15 Apr. 2020, https://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/inventions/typewriter.html.

(2) "Typewriter." Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., https://www.britannica.com/technology/typewriter.

(3) "The History of Typewriters." Back Then History, https://www.backthenhistory.com/articles/the-history-of-typewriters.

(4) Work Over Easy. "The History of the Typewriter: From the First Prototype to the Digital Age." Work Over Easy, 2 May 2017, https://www.workovereasy.com/2017/05/02/819/.

(5) "How Keyboard Creators Came Up with the QWERTY Layout." Typesy, https://www.typesy.com/how-keyboard-creators-came-up-with-the-qwerty-layout/#:~:text=Instead%20of%20figuring%20a%20way,upper%20and%20lower%20case%20letters.&text=The%20Dvorak%20layout%20was%20invented,tried%20an%20alternative%20keyboard%20layout.

(6) "History of the Typewriter." Typewriter, http://type-writer.org/?page_id=4705.

(7) "Who Invented the Typewriter? A Brief History of the Typewriter and Its Numerous Inventors." History Cooperative, https://historycooperative.org/who-invented-the-typewriter/.

(8) "World's First Ever Production Typewriter Sells for More Than £80,000." Daily Mail Online, 12 Nov. 2019, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7662037/Worlds-production-typewriter-sells-80-000.html.

(9) "Mark Twain Wrote the First Book Ever Written With a Typewriter." Open Culture, 2 Oct. 2017, https://www.openculture.com/2017/10/mark-twain-wrote-the-first-book-ever-written-with-a-typewriter.html.

(10) "A Brief History of Keyboards." SlideShare, 2013, www.slideshare.net/slideshow/a-brief-history-of-keyboards/22430860.

(11) Stoker, Bram. Dracula. Edited by Nina Auerbach and David J. Skal, 3rd ed., Norton Critical Edition, 1997.