The majority of the younger generations may have seen typewriters, but few have actually used them. They weren&#;t lucky enough to experienc the “joy” of using a typewriter eraser or liquid paper to correct those inevitable mistakes. Our new exhibit explores the fascinating history of the typewriter.
In Inventor and inventions, we learn that in , Englishman Henry Mill, patented the idea of “an artificial machine or method for the impressing or transcribing of letters singly or progressively on after another.” It was proposed to take the place of slow and often illegible handwriting. Most of the early attempts, however, were actually slower than handwriting and some were as large as a piano.
There are conflicting reports about the earliest working models of the typewriter. One report says that the earliest was made in Italy by Giuseppe Pellegrino Turri, not only a nobleman, but also a skilled mechanic. He invented carbon paper to provide ink to the typewriter. Not much is known about this early typewriter, but 16 letters that were written on it are preserved in a museum in Reggio Emilia. The legend is that in the early nineteenth century he built it for his love, Countess
A Machine for Writing: A Brief History of the Typewriter
The story of the typewriter begins in the early nineteenth century with an Italian man, the devoted friend of a young countess who had recently gone blind, inventing a machine so she could write letters. Or it begins in the mid-nineteenth century with a Danish pastor who invented a writing ball that looked like an oversized metal pincushion. Or perhaps it begins a century before either of those, in England, when an engineer patented “an artificial machine” for “transcribing letters singly or progressively one after another, as in writing,” that he potentially built, but likely just imagined.
In the years before the typewriter reached mass production and public consciousness, there were a wealth of origin stories and nearly a hundred inventors: a medical doctor in New York; the head of an institution for the blind in England; a bicycle inventor in Germany; a priest in Brazil. Its many origin stories is representative of its history as a whole: unclear, messy, up for debate.
Many, if not most, of the early inventors were working on a tool for the blind. Their inventions were split between deve
The History of the Typewriter
While the history of the typewriter is unclear and numerous inventors have received credit for the typing machine, historians generally accept that Italian inventor Pellegrino Turri played a significant role in the early days of the typewriter. In , he reportedly created a device to help his blind friend, Countess Carolina Fantoni da Fivizzano, in writing letters independently.
In the United States, William Austin Burt invented and patented a device known as the “typographer” in the s. However, this precursor to the modern typewriter was not widely adopted on a commercial level. It wasn’t until Christopher Latham Sholes, who created the first practical and commercially successful typewriter in the s, that the device made a splash in the American market.
Sholes, a newspaper editor and inventor, collaborated with Carlos Glidden, a fellow printer and editor, and Samuel W. Soule, a printer. Glidden provided financial support, and Soule invented the escapement mechanism, which regulated the movement of the typewriter’s carriage. As the patent details, “Its features are a better way of working the type-bars, of holding the paper on the carriage, of mov
presents
The concept of a typewriter dates back at least to , 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 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 book The Writing Machine. Carey Wallace's 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 Rasmus Malling-Hansen (). 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 and appeared on the
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