When was the typewriter invented

Typewriters fall out of favor in the s We all know that the end of the typewriter began in the s with the rise in popularity of the word processor and the personal computer. Word of the day. Redefine your inbox with Dictionary. After several modifications, he delivered a successful model in the year In the year , he handed over this device to the Northeast Electric Company.

Later Northeast developed the machine and produced Remington Electric typewriter in the year This model was quite successful and sold over unit. In , they produced the first Electromatic Typewriter. It was the first successful electric typewriter in the United States. It used a typeball to print letters on the paper. It was a completely new concept and the typeball was replaceable. It was a fast and jam-free typing machine. In the 70s decade, IBM and other typewriter manufacturers started to develop a hybrid version of typewriter and printer.

These machines used the dot-matrix mechanism to print letters on the paper and could correct the typo. This was the last phase of development of the typewriter. In the late 70s, the production and development of the typewriter was slowdown rapidly because of the increasing popularity of the personal computer. In , the Xerox Corporation introduced a unique and most advanced typewriter. No one knew who would want to buy a typewriter.

Sholes thought his most likely customers would be clergymen and men of letters and hoped that interest might then expand to the general public. Neither he nor Densmore saw the obvious utility of the typewriter in business. Sluggish economic conditions in the s were partly responsible for this lack of marketing foresight.

Imperfections in the typewriter itself may take another part of the blame. And, as hard as it is to conceive of today, Americans in the s and s were deeply uncomfortable with the strange notion of "mechanical writing. The nineteenth-century response to a typewritten letter could have been something like our response to "junk mail"! In addition, typed signatures could be forged.

Some accounts tell of recipients who were angered and insulted by typed letters, seeing them as a comment on their inability to read handwriting. A marketing breakthrough finally occurred with the development of the concept of "scientific management" in the s. With the specialization of work--some people doing correspondence, others keeping accounts, etc.

People were ready to give up the old idea of business letters being governed by the same rules as personal letters when business became so big and impersonal that the change was possible.

The changing look of the typewriter offers vivid proof that the design of a manufactured object reflects a complex combination of social values, economic needs, and profit-driven motives. Famed polymath and horologist Rupert T. Gould was fascinated with typewriters his entire life; by the s, he had one of the largest collections in existence—at least 71—and wrote the first independent history of the machine, called The Story of the Typewriter in It has been argued that the typewritten page was an influence in the move in book designs from justified lines to even-spacing between words and the uneven right-hand margins this causes.

I write on a typewriter, almost never in hand … and my machine—an obsolete red-top Royal Portable—is the biggest influence on my work. This red hood hold [ sic ] the mood, keeps my eye happy. Our Privacy Policy sets out how Oxford University Press handles your personal information, and your rights to object to your personal information being used for marketing to you or being processed as part of our business activities.

We will only use your personal information to register you for OUPblog articles. Or subscribe to articles in the subject area by email or RSS. I have been collecting 19th century typewriters for 30 years and have had many wonderful adventures in doing so. The history of the typewriter is certainly incomplete or narrowed down to the USA.