Show THE INVENTOR VF OF THE TH E TY typewriter P K K 1 by ELMO SCOTT WATSON HE click and clatter of 0 the keys were silenced as the visitors paused beside the desk from which the noise came anae what lize are you on doing 01 im writing an article on the typewriter 1 I know you are I 1 can see that for myself put it about its about the typewriter oh now I 1 under understand 1 youre writing an article ABOUT the typewriter ON the typewriter but chyr well you see february 14 nap hap pens to be the anni anniversary versi try of the birth or of christopher latham sholes and he oil oh yes he was the chap who invented the typewriter he be that depends upon what you mean when you say anve inventor antor because yes a great deal does depend of that borill the definition liti stipon pory lat at leasta dozen men did the plo work that eventually re ignited in the modern high speed 1 I writing machine and each of them has some gome claim to the title of father of I 1 the typewriter or to the honor of being its inventor probably the first effort to produce a writing machine was made by an english engineer named bell iry mill ifill in 1714 A patent issued to harn by queen anne on january 7 of that year states that he invent aed and brought to perfection an artificial machine or method for the impression or transcribing of letters simply or progressively one after another as in writing w whereby hereby all writings whatsoever may be engrossed in paper or parchment so neat and exact as not to be distinguished from print that said machine or method may be of great use in settlements and public records the impression being deeper and more mere lasting than other writing and not to be erased or counterfeited without manifest discovery except for this patent which Is filed in the british patent office there Is however no other record of the principles of operation of mills machine the same Is true of a writing machine which Is said to have been invented in france in 1784 so neither mill nor this unknown frenchman have any very valid claim to the title of inventor of the typewriter first claimant the first real claimant to that title was an Aine american rIcan WillI william arn austin curt burt a native of massachusetts where he be wasi casborn orn june 13 but a citizen of michigan in 11 1829 when ullen he invented his typographer at any rate the record of his bis invention in the united states patent office declares that this patent discloses the actual construction of a typewriting machine for the first time in any country it then describes the working of the typographer as follows the type are arranged on the under side of a segment carried by a i lever pivoted to swing vertically and horizontally the desired character Is brought to the printing point by moving this lever horizontally to a position over the same character in the 1 index and the impression Is made by then depressing the lever several styles of type may be used and they are arranged in two i rows on the lever these rows of can be shifted on the lever to either one to the printing the paper Is carried on an end iless band which travels crosswise ion m the machini machine and this band Is 19 A WILLIAM AUSTIN BURT moved for letter spacing by the im pres slon lever every time the lever la is depressed to print the line space Is made by shift 1 ing the frame carrying the printing mechanism toward the front or the I 1 rear of the machine the paper remaining stationary ink pads are located at each tide side of t the impression point and all the ype except the one in printing po altion are inked ev eiery e ry time the impression pres slon lever lg is depressed A dial is provided wn ich indicates the length of paper in inches which has passed the printing point in fit printing each line and as the operator knows the width of the pa oa per being used the time to stop liaw t miss eileen donohue as she appear appeared edin in the costume of the seventies in a skit presented by the new york Y W C A as a part if f the celebration in 1933 to mark the sixtieth anniversary of the invention of the typewriter and the entrance of women into the modern business world the typewriter shown in this picture Is the original model perfected by christopher latham sholes from which the first manufactured machine was copied printing at the end of the line la is indicated principle reversed 4 this indicates that the principle ot of burts burls machine was the reverse of that on modern machines in the typographer the type moved at the imprint ot of each letter until the end of the line was reached and instead of returning the carriage as Is done on a modern typewriter the frame carrying the printing mechanism was shifted back to the starting point while the paper itself remained motionless burt obtained type for his machine from john shelton editor and proprietor of the detroit gazette and shelton on may 25 1829 wrote the first letter OR on the new contraption trap tion it was addressed to martin van buren then secretary of state and said this Is a specimen of printing done by me on mr burts typographer you will observe some inaccuracies in the situation of tie the letters these are owing to t the e imperfections of the machine it t having been made in the woo woods s of michigan where no proper too tools s could be obtained by the inventor who in the construction of it merely wished to test the principles of it therefore taking little pains in making it I 1 am satisfied from my knowledge of the printing business as well as from the operation of the alie rough machine with which I 1 am printing that the typographer will be ranked with the most novel useful and pleasing inventions vent ions lons of the age on july 23 1829 patent no signed by president andrew jackson and secretary van buren was granted to burt for his oty typographer the original model of the machine was lost in the fire of december IP 15 1830 1836 which destroyed the patent office and all its contents found no market burva burls invention was so tar far la in advance of the times that it found no market so he turned his attention to other things among them was the invention of the solar compass an instrument which remedied variations of a magnetic needle due to local causes and his bis interest in internal improvements in michigan territory the latter included a project for a canal around arouni the falls in st marys river the forerunner of the present canal at sault st marle marie so EO burts fame as father of the soo canal is secure even it if his ri right bt to the title of father of the typewriter has never been firmly established during the next few years a number of writing machines of one sort or another made their appearance the first of these and one which showed a nearer approach to the modern typewriter was charles charlea Thur bers printer which he patented august 26 1843 the first machine to use continuous roll paper feed instead of an endless strip of tape as originated by burt was invented by john I 1 B fairbanks who produced his phonetic writing machine patented september 17 18 0 on may billy 20 1850 john 11 cooper patented a writing machine which exhibited for the first time the principle of hammer b ammer printing against a wheel or disc which corresponds very closely to the modern typewriting machine in june 1830 1873 alfred E K beach editor of the scientific american brought out a mechanical writer whose principle was to record raised letters instead of printing them it contained the first alignment of type bars in a circle delivering their impression on a common ce center anter first portable in 1857 dr S W r francis francl of new york added to this form of writing machine the pianoforte keyboard action for the first time this greatly simplified the method of striking the keys in 1861 thomas hall of 0 new york who Is said to have perfected the first portable typewriting machine a model of a larger instrument on which he be was working was the first to use an inked ribbon tor for recording the letters and characters jn in the m meantime antime another american living in england was working on an invention which was to have a direct bearing upon the development of the typewriter in its present form and to give him a strong claim to the title of 0 inventor of the typewriter he was john pratt born in Uni unionville onville S C april 14 1831 and for several years after his graduation from cokes bury college in 1849 a journalist and lawyer in the south in 1864 pratt and his m wife ire went to england where he devoted his attention to perfecting a writing machine which he called the tor for which he was granted a british patent in 1800 1806 according to the national of american Blo biography graph which calls him the inventor of the typewriter and which says that his was the first working typewriter that ever secured a sale pratt claimed four operations as requisite to the accomplishment of his purpose they were that it was necessary to bring any one of a number of types at the will of the operator and in arbitrary succession to common point to form a colored or other legible character at that common point to teed feed the paper across the common point so as to make proper intervals between the letters and the words to prepare a device for bringing the paper readily and speedily back to its starting point with an interval between the lines in 1867 his machine was exhibited before the society of arts and a paper read by the inventor before that society was printed in its journal in that same year also he be made and sold several of his machines in london among the purchasers being sir charles wheatstone and dr bence jones the author of a life of faraday three cranks but more important still in the history of the typewriter was the fact that during the winter of in a little machine shop in the outskirts of the city of milwaukee wis three middle aged thoughtful and hardworking hard working men looked upon as cranks by their neighbors were each hard bard at work on a pet invention of his own so says the story of the typewriter issued by the historical society of herkimer county new york in 1923 it continues one of these men christopher latham slides sholes a printer and newspaper man was engaged in developing a machine for numbering serial ly the pages of blank books in this work lie had interested one of the others samuel W soule while the third of the group carlos glidden put in his time trying to invent a mechanical Ispa derl to take the place of a plow chance caused these three men to drop the inventions on which they had been working and to pool their interests in a new and tar far greater undertaking according to one story the idea arose out of a remark made by gild den while the paging machine was nearing completion why cannot such a machine be made that will write letters and words and not figures only A subsequent article in the scientific american describing the model of the lie a machine designed for just such a purpose but never perfected came as an additional suggestion to them then a challee visit to the milwaukee machine shop of one william 0 ladue who had for many years been dreaming of the invention of a typewriter completed the circuit of suggestion that set sholes glidden and soule to working wholeheartedly and to the ex exclusion clu of everything else on the new idea A practical mechanic mec hanle matthias schwalbach who bad helped sholes develop bis bin paging machine was vas added to the group of expert menters in the little machine shop ind and proved quite a handy man troth in n carrying out oat ideas and ions eions but sholes was the roan mail with the lie big idea and to him film the anven tion lon of the first practical typewrite i Is s credited john alden descendant sholes was a descendant of johr johl ind and alden and was born in columbia county pennsylvania february 14 1819 at the age of fourteen lie he was apprenticed to the editor of the danville pa to learn the printing business but at the age of eighteen lie decided to join his brother who was then ii living ing in green day cay wis two years later slides sholes went to madison and took charge of the wisconsin inquirer owned by his brother charles and in 1810 he be edited the southport southwort South port later kenosha Kenos lia telegraph four years later he became the postmaster there and after moving to milwaukee was postmaster in that city ile he was also editor of the sentinel and the news commissioner of public works and collector of customs it was during his career in this office that lie he became interested in making a numbering machine and working with the other two men in their little machine shop on a writing machine A one letter affair the first machine which he invented was a simple one letter affair made with an old telegraph key a sheet of glass and odds and ends of wood and metal it printed only a series of Ws but it was the germ of the final machine for to quote from the herkimer county history this machine was important in the history of the typewriter for only one tiling thing it introduced another crank to the machine shop james densmore who dropped in one day looked the machine over and pronounced it good for nothing save to show that the idea was feasible ile he was just the man that the dreamer and idealist needed sholes Sl ioles and densmore kept hammering away on the invention built model after model mode until 25 or SO 0 had X w christopher L SHOLES been madland ma made and finally in 1873 they turned out a machine which was deemed sufficiently perfected tor for actual manufacture it was sholes that named his invention the typewriter the model was brought to illon ilion herkomer herfi imer county new york where the tons had bad a gun factory and it was with the rem logtens that the inventors made the first contract for the manufacture of the new typewriting machine tills this was in february 1873 the actual manufacture of the machine began in the fo following lowing september it was a very primitive looking affair that was turned out by the tons but it was the ancestor of all the typewriters and Is 8 till still labeled in its museum repository as the model I 1 remington it wrote only capital letters the sewing machine influence was apparent in its appointments the carriage was returned by a curious foot treadle which however quickly demonstrated its uselessness and was soon displaced by the now low familiar hand carriaco carrl carri aee ace return nevertheless the file fundamental principles of construction embodied in this Is first rs typewriter y still survive thou though 11 their application has since been modified or transformed in many ways in the marvelous little machines of today one other item in the history of christopher latham sholes as the rather father of the typewriter Type deserves mention incidentally the national cyclopedia dla says that it if sholes can be called the father ot of the typewriter pratt may justly be called the grandfather at the time slides sholes was making the final improvements on his typewriter a bitter political campaign was being waged and politics was in the minds and on the tongues of everyone why today when you sit down at your typewriter to try its action or to warm up before you begin writing you top tap out on oil it these words now Is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party christopher lati lain sholes was the inventor of that sentence 0 western newspaper union |