Making the Typewriter

C

hristopher Latham Sholes, the inventor of the Typewriter was born in Pennsylvania in 1819. At the age of fourteen, he was introduced to the art of printing in the office of the newspaper called Intelligencer. At eighteen, he was a proficient compositor (person engaged in typesetting). His elder brother, a printer like himself, edited and owned the newspaper, Democrat, in Wisconsin. Christopher accepted a position in its staff and hence moved to Green Bay, Wisconsin.

In this new job, Sholes displayed amazing proficiency and swiftly climbed up the ladder of success. He was given responsibility of the Inquirer, a newspaper owned by his brother. Though his activities in this role were numerous, he still wished for more to keep him busy. Consequently, he started the Telegraph, in partnership with a friend, Michael Frank. The Telegraph remains prestigious to this day.

Often, Sholes went to Milwaukee on errands of business. He noticed that Milwaukee was developing much more rapidly than Wisconsin. Accordingly, he moved to Milwaukee to become editor of the Sentinel, and later of the News. During his time, newspaper offices seldom had printing departments. On an occasion, when Sholes’ compositors went on strike, he seriously started considering the idea of typesetting by machinery. At this time, Sholes manufactured a number of tickets, coupons and so on, all numbered by old-fashioned metal-stamps. One day, it struck him that he could develop a machine to perform this work much more efficiently!  He discussed this project with a friend, Samuel W. Soule, and the duo soon devised and patented their numbering machine. Carlos Glidden, a friend and inventor himself, brought to Sholes' attention that this design should be further used to print letters and words.

Several months later, Sholes came upon an article in the Scientific American about a highly-acclaimed writing machine invented by John Pratt. An editorial column praised, “A machine by which it is assumed that a man may print his thoughts twice as fast as he can write them, and with the advantage of the legibility, compactness, and neatness of print, has lately been exhibited before the London Society of Arts by the inventor, Mr. Pratt, of Alabama. The subject of typewriting is one of the interesting aspects of the near future.” Sholes believed that he could devise a mechanism more simple and robust than Pratt’s and went on to collaborate with Soule and Glidden to pursue the designing process. Soule suggested a design in which convergent typebars were to be placed on the rim of a circle. Each typebar would strike the center when a key is pressed.  The inker used in this model was an inked ribbon, invented by Dr. William Francis. This later  became the standard inker

The original idea was to have the keyboard fashioned after the piano: the first row was of ivory, the second of ebony and a third row made up of letters and characters that were not used often, in the form of pegs.

3 5 7 9 N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

2 4 6 8 . A B C D E F G H I J K L M

The first patent

 However, several flaws were found in this model:  (1) It was rather weighty and clumsy (2) The writing could not be seen till it was completed (3) Once the document was removed from the machine, it could not be replaced such that the lines would correspond with those previously written (4) Characters were supported on metal arms or typebars, which would often clash and jam while fast-paced typing.

In his second model, Sholes discarded his piano model at the suggestion of his model-maker, Mattias Scwalbach, a builder of tower-clocks in Milwaukee. His new model was based on placing the characters oftenest used nearest to the working center.  The problem of jams was solved by placing commonly used letter-pairs (like "th" or "st") such that their typebars were not neighbouring. This evolved in to an earlier version of the “QWERTY” keyboard that is used today. Additionally, he adopted a design by Charles Thurber, in which the paper was borne on a cylindrical carriage.

Patented in 1868, the model by Sholes, Glidden and Soule included: (1) A circular disc, with radial grooves and slots to receive and guide the typebars so that they struck the center (2) Radial typebars to fit with this disc (3) A ratchet to move the paper carriage by the breadth of a single space when a key was struck (4) A hinged clamp to hold the paper firmly on its carriage.

At this time, Mr. Sholes was the comptroller of the city of Milwaukee. As a part of his responsibility, he had to enter into certain contracts on behalf of the city, for the paving of certain streets. He had the contract typed on one of his machines and this is claimed to have been the first official document ever produced on a typewriter. In that machine, only capital letters appeared.

One of the first few uses of Sholes' Typewriter for a letter to one of his friends.

After making a few more significant improvements to their second design, they decided to share their invention with their friends. One of them, James Densmore, foresaw great potential in this invention and asked the price for a share in the patent. But when he first saw the machine that its inventors were so proud of, he called it “good for nothing except to show that its underlying principles were sound”. He urged the trio to proceed with further amendments and agreed to provide them with funds for doing so. Soule and Glidden withdrew at this point, leaving Sholes and Densmore with sole possession of the patent.

As a part of developing the next typewriter, Sholes and Densmore sent experimental machines to a leading reporter in Washington, James Clephane. Clephane was very sharp in his criticism and often reduced the machine to scrap. This upset Sholes greatly. He declared to Densmore that he would no longer work with Clephane. Densmore coaxed him by saying that Clephane’s candid criticism was what they needed. “Where Clephane points out a weak lever or rod, let us make it strong. Where a spacer or an inker works stiffly, let us make it work smoothly. Then, depend upon Clephane for all the praise we deserve.”

When they decided that they had learnt as much as Clephane could teach them, they showed the machine to an expert mechanic, George Yost. He suggested further changes in matters of detail and precision in manufacture. For this purpose, he recommended that they take their model to Eliphalet Remington & Sons, New York. The Remingtons were then manufacturing high-quality firearms, sewing machines, and farm tools. Each part of their pistols or rifles was accurately copied from a model to the one-thousandth part of an inch. Sholes and Densmore showed their typewriter to their expert experimental team. This team was to adapt the machine to large-scale manufacturing.

The Sholes and Densmore typewriter had been put together by amateur mechanics, it had been developed under the fire of an unrelenting critic, it had been examined and amended by a distinguished inventor and was now to undergo standardization in a great modern factory. The Remingtons saw its possible future value and bought the patent from Sholes and Densmore, who agreed for the machine to be called the “Remington”. Sholes accepted a lump sum payment of $12,000 while Densmore entered in to a royalty agreement and made a million and a half dollars.

The Sholes Visible

Sholes kept improving the design thereafter, working with his sons. The best of his designs, “The Sholes Visible” displayed not only the line that is being written but all that is written. Its typebars were each in a single un-jointed piece of L-shape. In simplicity of structure, perfection of alignment and durability, this machine was distinctly superior to any predecessor.

After Sholes’ death, other improvements were added to his invention: (1) a means for retracting a line while correcting an error (2) varying the distances apart at which lines may be written (3) using a shift-key with which one of the two characters may be written by each key. An upper case “B” and a lower case “b” were engraved on a block attached to the “b” key. When the key was struck,”b” would print since “B” would be too far to imprint on the paper. Lowering the shift key would “shift” the carriage to print “B” instead. Later, electricity was invoked to lessen the toil of typing for hours and hours.

Sholes died in 1890 of Tuberculosis, leaving behind six sons and four daughters.