Typewriters: Ten Things You May Not Know About Them

The typewriter is all but obsolete today, having been overtaken by computers and word processors. But typewriters still have useful applications many people don’t know about, and a fascinating history that’s worth documenting.

For example, did you know:

* ‘Typewriter’ was also the name by which early users of typewriters were known until confusion led to the alternative term, typist.

* A typewriter has a keyboard with keys that form character impressions on paper, but actual methods by which typewriter keyboards created these impressions varied dramatically since the typewriter was invented in the early 1800s. Some typewriters had circular keyboards; others had two keyboards, one for lower case characters, the other for capital characters or upper case. Some worked by creating impressions from beneath the paper so typists were unable to see their work or spot mistakes as they occurred. Because upper case ‘o’ (O) resembles a zero (0) and lower case ‘l’ (l) looks much like the figure one (1), some keyboards used the same key for each partner combination.

* It is believed that ‘writing machines’, similar to typewriters, were around in the early 1700s, the earliest probably created by Henry Mill who in 1714 obtained a patent from what sounds to have closely resembled a typewriter.

* In 1829 the ‘typographer’ was patented by William Burt and is sometimes called ‘The First Typewriter’, although more accurate perhaps is the London Science Museum’s description of Burt’s work as ‘the first writing mechanism whose invention was documented’, seemingly acknowledging those earlier creations.

* Religion plays a major part in typewriter history. In 1861 a Brazilian priest, Father de Azevedo, made a typewriter from wood and knives and was awarded a gold medal for his invention by the Brazilian emperor. The first typewriter to be sold commercially was made in 1870 by the Reverend Malling Hansen of Denmark whose design, the Hansen Writing Ball, was a success throughout Europe for several decades and was used in London as late as 1909.

* Until the late 1860s most typewriters were slower than handwriting. The first typewriter that was faster than writing by hand was made by Scholes, Soule and Glidden in 1867 and sold for $12,000 to Densmore and Yost. The design was later licensed to Remington, whose first typewriter was produced in New York in 1873.

* Typewriters are rarely used today but they do have viable application worldwide. Typewriters are still used in areas without electrical supplies or even during power cuts. They are also extremely useful for filling out forms where paper can be lined up in the typewriter for words to be typed in their proper place, something that is nigh on impossible using computers. In developing countries with limited computers and few people possessing typewriters we find individuals setting up with their typewriters in public spaces where they provide on the spot letter writing services.

* The QWERTY system was designed in 1874 for Sholes and Glidden typewriters. The layout was the result of copious testing and provided the best possible layout for busy fingers moving quickly across a keyboard. This universal feature of the typewriter keyboard was also the basis on which touch typing (no peeking at the keyboard) is taught.

* In the Eastern Bloc typewriters were controlled by the secret police and their owners’ names kept on file. In Russia the KGB was particularly guarded against anyone using a typewriter, those who did were often investigated as dissidents and political agitators.

* Like fingerprints, every typewriter had its own unique pattern of type. There was even a specialist forensic branch of police charged with matching typed documents with actual typewriters used in blackmail and other criminal acts.