Sholes and Glidden typewriter

Early development The Sholes and Glidden typewriter had its origin in a printing machine designed in 1866 by Christopher Latham Sholes to assist in printing page numbers in books, and serial numbers on tickets and other items. Sholes, a Wisconsin printer, formed a partnership with Samuel W. Soule, also a printer, and together they began development work in Charles F. Kleinsteuber's machine shop, a converted mill in northern Milwaukee. Carlos S. Glidden, an inventor who frequented the machine shop, became interested in the device and suggested that it might be adapted to print alphabetical characters as well. In July 1867, Glidden read an article in Scientific American describing "the Pterotype", a writing machine invented by John Pratt and recently featured in an issue of London Engineering. Glidden showed the article to Sholes, who thought the machine "complicated and liable to get out of order", and was convinced that a better machine could be designed. To that point, several dozen patents for printing devices had been issued in the United States and abroad. None of the machines, however, had been successful or effective products. In November 1866, following their successful collaboration on the numbering machine, One recipient, James Densmore, immediately bought a 25% interest for $600, the cost of the machine's development to that date. Densmore saw the machine for the first time in March 1868, and was unimpressed; he thought it clumsy and impractical, and declared it "good for nothing except to show that its underlying principles were sound". Among other deficiencies, the device held paper in a horizontal frame, which limited the thickness of the paper that could be used and made alignment difficult. A patent for the "Type-Writer" was granted on June 23, 1868, and, despite the device's flaws, Densmore rented a building in Chicago in which to begin its manufacture. Fifteen units were produced before a lack of funds forced the venture back to Milwaukee. Refinement During 1869, an improved model was designed which, unlike the previous version, drew upon work done by other inventors. A machine patented in 1833 by Charles Thurber, for example, used a cylindrical platen. Sholes adapted the idea and implemented a rotating drum to which the paper was clipped, replacing the frame of the previous model. Soule and Glidden did not assist development of the new platen and, as their interest in the venture was waning, sold their rights to the original machine to Sholes and Densmore. Prototypes were sent to professionals in various fields, including James O. Clephane, a stenographer whose heavy use destroyed several machines. Clephane's feedback, although "caustic", which was looking for a method to record telegrams. Western Union ordered several machines, In 1872, to manufacture the new machine in earnest, a former wheelwright shop was secured along with several employees. Although the machines worked well, the lack of economies of scale prevented the venture from yielding a profit. Glidden kept his one-tenth right of the patent. Densmore consulted with George W. N. Yost, a manufacturer with whom he had been acquainted, who suggested showing the machine to E. Remington and Sons. Remington, an arms manufacturer seeking to diversify after the Civil War, possessed the machining equipment and skilled machinists necessary to further develop the complex machine. A typewritten letter was sent to Remington, where executive Henry H. Benedict was impressed by the novelty and encouraged company president Philo Remington to pursue the device. Start of an industry Following a demonstration at Remington's offices in New York, the company contracted on March 1, 1873, to manufacture 1,000 machines, with the option to produce an additional 24,000. Remington dedicated a wing of its factory to the typewriter, and spent several months retooling and re-engineering the device; production began in September and the machine entered the market on July 1, 1874. Typewriter production was largely overseen by Jefferson Clough and William K. Jenne, manager of Remington's sewing machine division. The redesigned machine was sturdier and more reliable than Sholes' model, but it had taken on some of the characteristics of a sewing machine, including a japanned case with floral ornamentation and a stand with a treadle to operate the carriage return. The typewriter, however, had been rushed into production with insufficient testing, and early models were soon returned for adjustments and repair. By December 1874, only 400 typewriters had been sold, due in part to their high price and poor reliability. As businesses were slow to adopt the machine, authors, clergymen, lawyers and newspaper editors were the targeted customers. Individuals, however, generally did not write enough to justify the machine's price of about $125, the average annual income per person at the time. There were exceptions, however; Mark Twain was among the first to purchase the machine, which he termed a "curiosity breeding little joker". Several design and manufacturing improvements followed—including replacing the treadle with a hand lever—and 4,000 machines had been sold by 1877. An improved model, the Remington No. 2, was also introduced in 1878. The new machine was able to type upper and lowercase characters, thus remedying a significant drawback of its predecessor. In response to the new competition, Remington lowered the price of the Sholes and Glidden (referred to in sales literature as the Remington No. 1) to $80, and negotiated an agreement with the marketing firm Wyckoff, Seamans & Benedict to take all the machines produced. as the agency's marketing prowess led to the sale of 1,200 machines in its first year. By 1884, more competitors had appeared, including the Hammond Typewriter Company, the Crandall Type-Writer Company and the Hall Typewriter Company; in the decade since the introduction of the Sholes and Glidden, a "thriving typewriter industry" had developed. ==Design==

The Sholes and Glidden typewriter incorporated several components adapted from existing devices, such as escapement (a mechanism governing carriage movement) adapted from clockwork, keys adapted from telegraph machines and type hammers adapted from the piano. In developing the first model, however, Sholes and Soule had not investigated printing machines created by other inventors and, consequently, developed several poor designs which could have been avoided. The arm and frame components were replaced with a cylindrical platen in 1869. Unlike modern typewriters, the revised machine entered letters around the cylinder, with axial rotation providing letter spacing and horizontal shifting providing line spacing. Paper was clipped directly to the cylinder, which limited its length and width to the dimensions of the apparatus. The cylindrical platen became "an indispensable part of every standard [typewriter]". QWERTY keyboard The QWERTY keyboard, so named for the first six characters of the uppermost alphabetic row, was invented during the course of the typewriter's development. The first model constructed by Sholes used a piano-like keyboard with two rows of characters arranged alphabetically as follows: The mechanics of the machine, however, made the alphabetical arrangement problematic. The typebars were attached to the circumference of a metal ring, forming a "basket". When a key was pressed, the corresponding typebar would swing upwards, causing the print head to strike at the center of the ring. Gravity would then return the typebar to its initial position. It has been suggested that implication of this design, however, was that pressing adjoining keys in quick succession would cause their typebars to collide and jam the machine. To mitigate this problem, keys were reordered using analysis of letter frequency and trial and error, but others consider this analysis incorrect. Densmore asked his son-in-law, a Pennsylvania school superintendent, what letters and combinations of letters appeared most often in the English language. Typebars corresponding to letters in commonly occurring alphabetical pairs, such as S and T, were placed on opposite sides on the ring. The keyboard ultimately presented to Remington was arranged as follows:—which created a keyboard with what is essentially the modern QWERTY layout. ==Reception and legacy==

The Sholes and Glidden was the first commercially successful typewriter. The resulting increase in the volume of correspondence required messages to be produced quickly and legibly. Before the typewriter, clerks and copyists could write relatively quickly in shorthand or longhand. The comprehension of these scripts, however, required either special training or close concentration. Typesetting was used when legibility was important, but it was a slow and expensive process. The typewriter succeeded because it simultaneously addressed both issues. The public was initially skeptical of the typewriter, and reactions included apathy and antagonism. The typewriter also precipitated privacy concerns, as recipients of letters of a personal nature believed a third-party operator or typesetter must have been involved in their composition. Women and the typewriter The association of women with the typewriter may be linked to the way in which it was marketed. Before the typewriter was acquired by Remington, Sholes' daughter was employed to demonstrate the device and to appear in promotional images, which served as the basis for early advertisements. Remington's sales agents later marketed the machine with tactics including the use of attractive women to demonstrate the device at trade shows and in hotel lobbies. Depictions of female operators suggested the device was "easy enough for a woman" and suited for domestic use. of the typewriter's development was the entrance of women into the clerical work force. Although women were already employed in factories and certain service industries in the 1880s, the typewriter facilitated an influx of women into office settings. Before the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) established the first typing school in 1881, women were trained by the manufacturer and their typing services provided to customers along with the machine. While in 1874 less than 4% of clerical workers in the United States were women, by 1900, the number had increased to approximately 75%. Before his death, Sholes remarked of the typewriter, "I do feel that I have done something for the women who have always had to work so hard. This will enable them more easily to earn a living." ==See also==