My oldest typewriter (stashed on a storage shelf) is an
Underwood dating to the 1920s. It works though the keys require a heavy touch
and the machine itself weighs more than a stack of bricks of equal dimensions.
In high school (I graduated 1970) I mostly used an RC Allen from the 1950s that
was marginally lighter than the Underwood and much smoother to operate – that
is, when I used a typewriter at all. In nearly all my classes, assignments –
from essays to full-length term papers – could be handwritten in cursive. Most
were. My first portable typewriter was a 1970 Royal that I used through the
next four years of college, where everything needed to be typed.
Today, only 21 of the 50 states require teaching cursive handwriting in primary schools. Most do anyway, but, required or not, the instruction is likely to be cursory – basically enough so kids can sign their own names and little more. The majority of primary school students even by 8th grade have serious trouble reading a full page of cursive text. Many educators shrug at this, pointing out that we don’t teach the abacus either in an age when complex calculators are cheap and basic calculators are on every phone. There is some truth to this. Typing skills are similarly far more important than handwriting skills in an age of laptops and personal computers. Still, there is value in being able to read handwritten text. I, for one, more often than not write my checks in cursive just out of habit. Perhaps this annoys younger tellers at the bank.
The first patent for a typewriter was issued to Henry Mill by Queen Anne in 1714:
"An artificial machine or method for the impressing or transcribing of letters singly or progressively one after another, as in writing, whereby all writings whatsoever may be engrossed in paper or parchment so that the said machine or method may be of great use in settlements and publick records, the impression being deeper and more lasting than any other writing, and not to be erased or counterfeited without manifest discovery."
No example of this machine survives. It is not known if a prototype was ever built at all. If so, it didn’t impress any contemporary authors of note: no other mention of it has been found in 18th century literature.
In Britain and the US throughout the 19th century patents were issued and prototypes built for various typewriters, but all the machines for the first seven decades were clumsy to use: in no way faster than a fountain pen in the hand of even a lackadaisical scrivener. The first really practical “Type-writer” was designed by Christopher Sholes, Carlos Glidden, and Samuel Soule. In 1873 they presented their design to Remington, manufacturer of firearms and sewing machines. Remington took a chance on it. The influence of the sewing division was strong: the Model 1 machine was fixed to a table and the movable carriage was operated by a foot pedal, just like a sewing machine. It was weird but it worked, and it was faster than handwriting. In only a few years the product was refined for more efficient office use: it was detached from furniture and pedal, the movable carriage was redesigned to be hand operated, and lower case letters (the original machine was all caps) were added.
Mark Twain was an early adopter. Life on the Mississippi (1883) is believed to have been the first typed manuscript for a book ever delivered to a major publisher. Typed manuscripts quickly became standard (double spaced Courier 12 point please).
The next major advance was the word processor (WP) in the 1970s. (I’m ignoring ‘60s electric typewriters since they were an evolutionary step rather than a revolutionary change.) My first word processor was in 1988 or thereabouts. They were still pretty expensive off the shelf (though less than ‘80s computers) but I found a discounted refurbished Brother that some previous customer had returned. The refurbishing must have been done right since the machine worked fine for me. For the first time I could write, edit, and re-edit 100 draft pages stored in memory before printing it out. It changed the way I write. Previously, re-editing meant retyping whole pages – maybe entire documents – so there were a lot of “never mind, that’s good enough” editing decisions. The word processor memory made it easier to say “no that is not good enough” since this usually just meant changing a few words or perhaps a paragraph.
The WP also primed me for my first PC in 1993 running Windows 3.1. (I still have a Prodigy address.) This makes me more laggard than early adopter. Even so, as of next year I’ll have been writing on some version of Microsoft Word for 30 years. I’ve been typing (at least occasionally) for 60.
Elder Millennials (now nudging into their 40s) in the First World may still remember a time when they did without WPs, PCs, or Macs. Anyone younger does not. Perhaps it is not so surprising if many of them look at penned longhand writing with puzzlement. Perhaps cursive will make a comeback though when kids realize that their (younger Millennial) parents can’t read it. They can leave diaries and incriminating notes out in the open with no fear that the secrets in them will be discovered.
Liberace – Typewriter Song
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