Typewriter patent

[PennLady]

The document of the day at the National Archives for June 23 is this, a drawing of a "Type-Writer" from June 23, 1868.

http://www.archives.gov/historical-docs/todays-doc/

 

[oggbashan]

In the later years of the 19th Century, many improvements were made to Typewriters. By about 1910 the traditional keyboard QWERTY and form of the machine were almost universal.

My eldest aunt was a "Lady Typewriter" before 1914. At the time that was a very high-tech job and well paid. She was earning far more than a male clerk or secretary. Most secretaries were male before 1914.

She managed to build on her skills. Although female, throughout her working life she was earning more than any of her brothers, even when they became senior Civil Servants. She ended her working life as a Board Member of a large company, when women at that level were almost unheard of.

Two of her brothers, and my mother, her sister in law, became telegraphists. But by that time using a keyboard was seen as a normal skill and wasn't as well paid as she had been.

In the 1980s my father who was then in his 80s, demonstrated for a museum the telegraph machine he had operated in the 1920s. He could still produce telegrams at 120 words per minute, slower than he had done when young, but faster than the museum staff had thought possible.

 

[Handley_Page]

The document of the day at the National Archives for June 23 is this, a drawing of a "Type-Writer" from June 23, 1868.

http://www.archives.gov/historical-docs/todays-doc/

Oh Dear. I do hoe that there's no suggestion of it being the first machine.
Wiki has an interesting article which is, as far as my information goes, nearly correct. The first machine seems to have been produced in 1714.

Quite why it never caught on is unclear, but guessable.


Ogg, Fascinating stuff. Thank you.

 

[PennLady]

Oh Dear. I do hoe that there's no suggestion of it being the first machine.
Wiki has an interesting article which is, as far as my information goes, nearly correct. The first machine seems to have been produced in 1714.

Quite why it never caught on is unclear, but guessable.


Ogg, Fascinating stuff. Thank you.

No this is just from the "Document of the Day" from the US National Archives. It's not suggesting it's the first anything, just a picture that was filed on this day in 1868, or perhaps the patent was, I couldn't tell.