Typewriter Blog Post

     The concept of the typewriter was first thought of back in the early 1700's. It wasn't until 1808 that the "first" typewriter was actually created by an Italian man named Pellegrino Turrie. There were many Europeans and Americans who were inventing different types of typewriters throughout the 19th century; however many didn't take on commercial use until the "Writing ball" was created. This was a typewriter so to speak that looked somewhat like a pincushion. The most influential typewriter of the late 19th century was the Sholes and Glidden Type Writer. It began production in late 1873 and appeared all over American markets in 1874.

     The Sholes and Glidden had limited success in the markets, but its successor, The Remington, soon became a big influence on the industry of typewriters. The Sholes and Glidden was an understroke or "blind" typewriter (like many of its time). This meant that the typist couldn't see their work while they were typing, the had to lift up the printing part of the typewriter. Another example of this type of typewriter in the American market was the Caligraph of 1880. Many typewriters introduced the QWERTY keyboard which became a universal keyboard to use across most typewriters.





     The standard price for a typewriter was around $100.00 (several times more than a personal computer in today's time). There were a lot of efforts to make typewriters cheaper, so they created the "index" writers. The index writer were a lot less heavy duty, and were only meant for someone who needed to do occasional typing. They were used by pointing to a certain letter in the index and then making another motion to print that letter picked out in the index. An example of these index typewriters is the American index typewriter, which sold for $5.00. Index typewriters actually survived well into the 20th century as children's toys. An example of this is the "Dial" typewriter created by Marx Toys in the 1920s and 30s.