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Show THE "INVENTOR" OF THE TYPEWRITER i By ELMO SCOTT WATSON ' I ; ylllB oliok Hiul clatter of ' "'av as tin' visitors paused h - ' s:,u' 1,1(1 ,u"u fr0lu wh,tfh " , -IJj, ilu noise came. "What rt you doing?" Tin writing an article on the typewriter." J "1 know yon are ... I can see that for niyscir. But what It about 1" "It's about the typewriter." "Oh, now I muierstaiul 1 You're writing an article ABOUT the type writer ON the typewriter. But whyr S"Vell. you see, February M hap pen3 to he the anniversary of the birth of Christopher Uatham Sholes ami he . . ." "Oh yes, he was the chap who Invented the typewriter, wasn't he!" a "That depends upon what you 3 mean when you say 'luventor' be-. be-. cause . . ." a Tes, a .croat deal does depend apon the definition of that word I m At least a dozen men did the plo-V plo-V neerlng work that eventually rent re-nt suited In the modern high-speed writing machine and each of them has some claim to the title of "father of the typewriter" or to the honor of being Its "Inventor." 1 robaoly the nrst errori to pro-v pro-v duce a writing machine was made tj by an English engineer named Heu-i, Heu-i, ry Mill In 1714. A patent Issued to t him by Queen Anne on January 7 of that year states that he "Invented "Invent-ed and brought to perfection an artificial ar-tificial machine or method for the !1 Impression or transcribing of letters simply or progressively one after another, as In writing, whereby all writings whatsoever may be engrossed en-grossed In paper or parchment so neat and exact as not to be dls-4 dls-4 tlngulshed from print; that said ij- machine or method may be of great crj use in settlements and public rec-T. rec-T. ords, the impression being deeper tl and more lasting than other writ lng, and not to be erased or coun- terfeited without manifest discovery." discov-ery." Except for this patent, which Is to filed In the British patent office. there Is. however, no other record of the principles of operation of fj Hill's machine. The same Is true JiJ of a writing machine which Is said to have been Invented In France In 17S4. So neither Mill nor this nn-n nn-n known Frenchman have any very 3 valid claim to the title of "inven-tT "inven-tT tor" of the typewriter. 0,1 First Claimant at tij The first real claimant to that gf. title was an American William m. Austin Burt, a native of Massacbu- setts, where he was born June 13, ,. 1792, but a citizen of Michigan In 1829 when he Invented his "typog- W rapher." At any rate the record eh ef his Invention In the United ea. States patent office declares that t "this patent discloses the actual construction of a typewriting ma- chine for the first time In any conn- T" try." It then describes the working " ef the "typographer" as followi: JJ" "The type are arranged on the un- der side of a segment carried by a lever pivoted to swing Tertlcally jjj and horizontally. ? "The desired character la brought to the printing point by moving this lever horizontally to a position orer the same character In the ln- j4 dex, and the impression is made by j then depressing the lever, at "Several styles of type may be ly used and they are arranged In two of rows on the lever. These rows of - type can be shifted on the lever to a- bring either one to the printing 1; point "The paper Is carried on an end- 7. less band which travels crosswise si on the machine, and this band Is WILLIAM AUSTIN BURT moved for letter spacing by the lm 4 presslon lever every time the lever y Is depressed to print n "The line space Is made by ahlft- !i lng the frame carrying the printing ie mechanism toward the front or the t rear of the machine, the paper re- - mainlng stationary. a1 "Ink pads are located at each side of the Impression point, and all the type, except the one In printing po- sltton, are Inked every time the im- presslon lever Is depressed. "A dial Is provided wnlch Indicates Indi-cates the length of paper In inches which has passed the printing point In printing each line, and as the T operator knows the width of the paper pa-per being used, the time to stop J Miss Eileen Donohue ai she appeared, In the costume of the seventies. seven-ties. In a skit presented by the New York Y. W. C. A. as a part of 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 per-fected by Christopher Latham Sholes from which the first manufactured machine was copied. printing at the end of the line la indicated." Principle Reversed. This Indicates that the prlncl pie of Burt's machine was the reverse re-verse of that on modem machines In the "typographer" the type moved at the Imprint of each letter until tbe end of the line was reached and, Instead of returning the carriage, as is done on a mod ern 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 ma-chine from John Shelton, editor and proprietor of the 1'etrolt Gazette, and Shelton on May L'", 1S29, wrote tbe first letter on the new con traption. It was addressed to Mar tin Van Buren, then secretary of state, and said: "Thi le a c -t ..n rtf nrlntlnp , to . ' . HI V 1, V. ...... ....p. done by me on Mr. Burt's typog rapher. You will observe some In accuracies In the situation of the letters. These are owing to the imperfections of the machine; It having been made In the woods of Michigan, where no proper tools could be obtained by the Inventor, who. In the construction of It, merely wished to test the prlncl pies of it, therefore, taking little pains In making it I am satisfied from my knowledge of the printing business as well as from the operation opera-tion of the rough machine, with which I am printing, that the typog rapher will be ranked with the most novel, useful and pleasing in ventions of the age." On July 23, 1S2U, patent No. 2C9. signed by President Andrew Jackson Jack-son and Secretary Van Buren, was granted to Burt for his "typographer." "typog-rapher." The original model of tbe machine was lost In the fire of December De-cember 15, 1S30, which destroyed the patent office and all Its contents. con-tents. Found No Market Burt's invention was so far In advance of the times that It found no market, so he turned bis attention atten-tion to other things. Among them was the Invention of the solar compass, com-pass, an Instrument which remedied reme-died variations of a magnetic needle, due to local causes, and his Interest In Internal improvements In Michigan territory. The latter In eluded a project for a canal around the falls In St. Mary's river, the forerunner of the present canal at Sault St. Marie, so Burt's fame as "Father of tbe Soo Canal" la secure se-cure even If his right to the title of "Father of the Typewriter" has never been firmly established. During the next few years a number num-ber 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 Thurber's printer which he patented patent-ed August 26, 1843. The first machine to nse continuous contin-uous roll paper feed, Instead of an endless strip of tape, as originated by Burt, was Invented by John B. Fairbanks, who produced his "phonetic" "pho-netic" writing machine, patented September 17, 1850. On May 20, 1856, John H. Cooper Coop-er patented a writing machine which exhibited for the first time the principle of hammer-printing against a wheel or disc, which corresponds very closely to the modern typewriting type-writing machine. In June, 1856, Alfred E. Beach, editor of the Scientific American, brought ont a mechanical writer, whose principle was to record raised letters Instead of printing them. It contained the first alignment align-ment of type bars In a circle, delivering de-livering their Impression on a common com-mon center. First Portable. In 1857, Dr. S. W. Francis 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 18(11. Thomas Hall of New York, who Is said to have perfected the first "portable" typewriting ma chine, a model of a larger lustra ment on which he was working, was the first to use an Inked ribbon for recording the letters and characters. In the meantime another American, Ameri-can, living In England, was working on an invention which was to have a direct bearing upon the development develop-ment of the typewriter In Its present pres-ent form and to give him a strong claim to the title of "Inventor of the typewriter." He was John Pratt, born In Unlonvllle. S. ('.. April 14. I8S1, nnd, for several y.virs after his graduation from OotUs bury college In lM'.i, a Journalist and lawyer In the South. In 1S64 Pratt and his w ife went to England, where he devoted his attention atten-tion to perfecting a writing machine which he called the "pterotype" for which he was granted a British patent pat-ent In I860. According to the National Na-tional Cyclopaedia of American Biography, which calls him the "In ventor 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 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. Jour-nal. In that same year also he made and sold several of his machines ma-chines In London, among the purchasers pur-chasers being Sir Charles Wheat-stone Wheat-stone and Dr. Bence Jones, the author au-thor 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 1806-67 1806-67 In a little machine shop In the outskirts of the city of Milwaukee, Wis., "three middle-aged, thoughtful and hard-working men, looked upon as 'cranks' by their neighbors, were each hard at work on a pet Invention Inven-tion of his own." So says "The Story of the Typewriter" Issued by the Historical society of Herkimer county, New York, In 1923. It continues con-tinues : "One of these men, Christopher Latham Sholes, a printer and newspaper news-paper man, was engnged In developing develop-ing a machine for numbering serially serial-ly tbe pages of blank books. In this work he had Interested one of the others, Samuel W. Soule, while the third of the group, Carlos Glldden, put In his time trying to Invent a mechanical 'spader' to take the place of a plow. Chance caused these three men to drop the Inventions Inven-tions on which they had been working work-ing and to pool their Interests In a new and far greater undertaking. "According to one story, the Idea arose out of a remark made by Glldden Glld-den while the paging machine was nearlng completion: 'Why cannot such a machine be made that will write letters and words and not fig ures only?' A subsequent article In the Scientific American describing the model of the "pterotype,' a machine ma-chine designed for Just such a purpose pur-pose but never perfected, came as an additional suggestion to them. "Then a chance visit to the Milwaukee Mil-waukee machine shop of one William Wil-liam G. LaDue, who had for many years been dreaming of the Invention Inven-tion of a 'typewriter,' completed the circuit of suggestion that set Sholes, Glldden and Soule to working wholeheartedly, and to the exclusion exclu-sion of everything else, on the new Idea. A prnctlcnl mechanic, Matthias Mat-thias Schwalbach, who had helped MholCH develop IiIh paging machine, was added to the gfOUP of epor! mentors In the little machine slns and proved quite a handy man, both In citrrylhg out Ideas nnd suggea lions. But Khnlcx was II nin with the big Idea and to hlin Die linen tlon of the first practical typewriter Is credited." John Alden Descendant Sholes was ll lleHeenitalit of John and Prlaclllu Alden, and was born lu Columbia county, Pennsylvania, li'ebrunry 1-1, IKII). At the age of fourteen he was apprenticed lu the editor of the I lanvllle (I'll.) Inli'lll geneer to learn the prliillng holiness, holi-ness, but at the age of eighteen he deeld. il to Join his brother, who was then living In Cieen Pay, Wis. Two years later Sholes went to .Madlsoii uud took charge of the Wisconsin Inquirer, owned by his brother, Onirics, and lu IS 10 he ed Ited the BOQtbpOFt (later Kenosha) Telegraph. I'onr years later be he camo the posi master there anil after moving to Milwaukee was postman-tor postman-tor In that oily. He was also editor ed-itor of the Sentinel anil the News, coininlssloner of public works and collector of customs. It was during dur-ing his career In this otllee that he became Interested lu making a numbering num-bering machine and working with the oilier two men In their little machine ma-chine u ll on on a wrltlm.' machine A One Letter Affair. The first machine which he Invented In-vented was a simple one letter affair, af-fair, made with an old telegraph key, a sheet of glass and odds and ends uf wood and metal. It printed only a series of W's, but It was the germ of the final machine. For, to quote from the Herkimer county history : "This mnchlne was Important In the history of the typewriter for only one thing It Introduced another an-other 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. He was Just the man that Sholes, the drenuier and Idealist, needed. "Sholes nnd Densmore kept hammering ham-mering away on the Invention, built model lifter model until 'S or 'M hud CHRISTOPHER L. SHOLES been made, and finally, In 1S73, they turned out a machine which was deemed sufficiently perfected for actual manufacture. It was Sholea that named his Invention the 'typewriter.' 'type-writer.' The model was brought to Illon, Herkimer county, New York, where the Remingtons had a gun factory, and It was with the Remingtons Rem-ingtons that the Inventors made the first contract for tbe manufacture manufac-ture of the new typewriting machine. ma-chine. This was In February, 1S73. The actual manufacture of the machine ma-chine began In tbe following ' September. Sep-tember. "It was a very primitive looking affair that was turned out by the Remingtons but It was the ancestor ances-tor of all the typewriters and Is still labeled, In Its museum repository reposi-tory as the 'model 1 Remington.' It wrote only capital letters. The sewing machine Influence was apparent ap-parent In Its appointments. The carriage was returned by a cu-. rlous foot treadle, which, however, quickly demonstrated its useless-ness useless-ness and was soon displaced by the now familiar hand carriage return. Nevertheless, the fundamental principles prin-ciples of construction embodied in this first typewriter still survive, though 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 "Father of the Typewriter" deserves de-serves mention. (Incidentally, the National Cyclopedia says that "If Sholes can be called the 'father of the typewriter,' Pratt may Justly be called the 'grandfather.'") At the time Sholes was making the final Improvements on his typewriter a bitter political campaign was being be-ing waged and politics was in the minds and on the tongues of everyone. every-one. That's why today, when you sit down at your typewriter to "try its action" or to "warm up" bet-fore bet-fore you begin writing, you tap out on It these words : "Now Is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party." Christopher Latham Sholes was the "Inventor" of that sentence ! ( Western Newspaper Union. |