Typewriter

TYPEWRITER, a machine which prints characters in se quence, performing the work of writing at a speed far greater than is possible with the pen. Formerly the term "typewriter" was also applied to the operator, but more recently the operator has become known as a "typist." Early Machines.--The first recorded attempt to invent a type writer is found in the records of the British Patent Office. These show that on Jan. 7, 1714, a patent was granted by Queen Anne to Henry Mill, an English engineer, for "an Artificial Machine or Method for the Impressing or Transcribing of Letters Singly or Progressively one after another, as in Writing, whereby all Writing whatever may be Engrossed in Paper or Parchment so Neat and Exact as not to be distinguished from Print." Mill's machine was never manufactured. Only one other attempt was recorded in the 18th century. This was a machine invented in 1784 for embossing characters for the blind. The first American patent on a typewriter was granted in 1829 to William Austin Burt of Detroit. The only model of this machine was destroyed by fire at the Washington Patent Office in 1836.

In 1833, a French patent was granted to Xavier Progin (or Projean), of Marseilles, for a device which he described as a "Ktypographic" machine or pen. It consisted of an assembly of bars with type, each type striking downward upon a common centre. The Progin device was the prototype of all our present type-bar machines. The next important step was taken by Charles Thurber of Worcester, Mass., to whom an American patent was granted in 1843. In this machine the letter spacing was effected by the longitudinal movement of a cylinder or platen, a principle which is a feature of all present-day standard writing machines. A different model, brought out by Thurber in the year 1845, was designed to perform the motions of the hand in writing, and was intended for the blind. In the previous year a machine, also intended for the blind, was shown by Littledale at the York meeting of the British Association Pierre Foucault, a teacher in the Paris Institute for the Blind, patented a machine in that was shown at the great exhibition in London in 1851, and is said to have embossed characters for the blind admirably.

From 185o the attempts became more numerous. Among those who took out patents in America during this period were Oliver T. Eddy of Baltimore, in 185o, J. B. Fairbanks, 185o, J. M. Jones of Clyde, N.Y., 1852, R. S. Thomas of Wilmington, N.C., 1854, Alfred Ely Beach of New York, 1856, J. H. Cooper of Philadelphia, 1856, Dr. Samuel W. Francis of New York, 1857, Henry Harger, 1858, F. A. de May of New York, 1863, Benja min Livermore of Hartland, Vt., 1863, Abner Peeler of Webster City, Ia., 1866, Thomas Hall, 1867, and John Pratt of Centre, Ala., who in 1866, while a resident in London, produced a device called the "Pterotype" (winged type), which operated on the type wheel principle. Contemporary efforts by European inventors were those of Sir Charles Wheatstone in England, who constructed several experimental models between 1855-6o ; the Ravissa ma chine in Italy belongs to that period, and the models built by Peter Mitterhofer of the Tyrol, in 1864 and 1866. Among the

most promising of these efforts were those of Beach and Francis. Beach's machine operated in much the same manner as a modern typewriter, but it wrote only on a narrow ribbon of paper. This machine, like so many others of this period, was designed for the blind, and printed raised letters which could be read by touch. The machine invented by Dr. Francis was a bulky affair, with keys like those of a piano. Type-bars were arranged in a circle, printing at a common centre.

First Practical Typewriter.--The

invention of three resi dents of Milwaukee, Wis., Christopher Latham Sholes, Carlos Glidden and Samuel W. Soule, in 1867, resulted in the first prac tical machine. Soule soon retired from the undertaking, but Sholes, within five years, made nearly 3o experimental models. The first of these, showing the working principles only, was covered in patent of June 23, 1868. The second one, patent of July 14, 1868, was the first efficient typewriter model, in that it would write well, at a speed far exceeding the pen. It was still, however, a very crude machine, lacking the now familiar type writer carriage, with its paper cylinder, and the keyboard in its present form. Many improvements followed and finally, on Mar. I, 1873, a contract was made with E. Remington and Sons, gun makers, of Ilion, N.Y., for the development and manufacture of the Sholes and Glidden machine. The first completed typewriters were placed on the market early in 1874 and the machine was soon re-named the Remington. Among its original features which re main standard in 1928 machines are the paper cylinder, with its line-spacing and carriage-return mechanism, the escapement which causes the letter spacing, the arrangement of the type-bars so as to strike the paper at a common centre, the actuation of the type-bars by means of key levers and connecting wires, printing through an inked ribbon, and the positions of the different charac ters on the keyboard, which conform almost exactly to the arrangement now known as "universal." The first typewriter had no shift-key mechanism—it wrote capital letters only. The problem of printing both capitals and small letters without increasing the number of keys was solved by placing two types, a capital and small face of the same letter, on each bar, in combination with a cylinder-shifting mechanism. The first shift-key typewriter appeared on the market in 1878. Soon there appeared another solution of the same problem in the so called single key- or double keyboard machines, which contained twice the number of keys—one for every character, whether capi tal or small letter. For many years the single-key and the shif t key machines competed for popular favour, but the advent of the "touch method" of typing, for which the compact keyboard of the shift-key machines was far better suited, decided this issue. Touch typing was slow in its early progress and before the '9os was practised only by operators of exceptional skill. In the latter decade, however, it rapidly gained acceptance and since 190o it has been practically the universal method of instruction.