Vintage Typing Machines
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Photograph courtesy Milwaukee Public Museum.
1852: The Jones Mechanical Typographer
This contraption is an early “index machine,” which uses a dial rather than a keyboard to choose letters. To work this device, you lift the bar on top to guide the Y-shaped indicator to the letter you want. (Here, it’s pointed to the Z.) Then you bring the bar down again, imprinting that letter onto the paper roller.
The first manufactured index machines were produced in the early 1880s and marketed as more affordable alternatives to the typewriter. At the time, typewriters cost around $125, the equivalent of $2,700 today. An index machine ran about $10, or roughly $220 in current dollars.
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Photograph courtesy Milwaukee Public Museum.
1856: Cooper Hand Printing Machine
This machine is an early circular index typewriter. The paper slid through the two wooden rolls at the top. To type, the user guided the wooden handle and bronze circular dial to his symbol of choice and pressed down on the handle to imprint the letter.
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Photograph courtesy Milwaukee Public Museum.
1868: The Experimental Sholes
This pianolike device is known as a "blind writer" because the typed page was hidden under a hinged carriage. When the museum acquired it from a machinist's shop in 1893—this one predates Dietz’s collection—he had already sold most of the ebony for the black keys and some of the ivory as well. The museum bought it for $1.Why the use of piano keys? Typewriter collector and University of Delaware professor Peter Weil thinks it was primarily an engineering consideration since the keys were a smooth, efficient interface between man and machine. Still, he says, the era's culture may have played a role. "The piano was associated with higher minded, moral activity," he says.
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Photograph courtesy Milwaukee Public Museum.
1874: Sholes & Glidden (Remington No.1)
Five years after unveiling the previous pianolike contraption, inventor Christopher Latham Sholes released an improved version, including a novel arrangement of the letters now known as the “QWERTY” keyboard, still in use today. Sholes developed the design because the previous alphabetical key arrangement wasn’t working well mechanically. On early typewriters, striking a key caused a bar underneath to swing downward. That bar then hit tape coated with ink, thus transferring the letter’s impression to the page. The mechanical problem stemmed from the bars—they jammed if a typist went too fast. So Sholes rearranged the keyboard, placing the most common letters far apart to slow typists. (The word typewriter, incidentally, can be spelled out using just the top row of keys.) -
Photograph courtesy Milwaukee Public Museum.
1888: The Boston
This index machine was a huge commercial flop, perhaps because it’s so massive: With a wingspan of 2 feet, it’s two times the width of the paper it typed on. It was only manufactured for one year. The paper was fed between the middle and bottom wooden boards, and would have moved from right to left under the middle of the machine. The silver tab up top on the left-hand side controlled upper- or lowercase letters and symbols.
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Photograph courtesy Milwaukee Public Museum.
1889: The Anderson Shorthand
This model has only 14 keys because it was made specifically for court reporters proficient in the "chording" method of typing. The idea was that a typist could press a few keys, or a “chord,” to represent the shorthand version of a word. Later, they would look at their manuscript and decipher the letters according to various methods of shorthand. This machine, which eliminated extraneous, nonshorthand letters, made the typing process easier. -
Photograph courtesy Milwaukee Public Museum.
1892: The Crary
There are only three known versions of this model in existence worldwide. "It feels almost like typing with an accordion," explains Alyssa Caywood, the conservation project assistant for the Milwaukee Public Museum IMLS Typewriter Project. An article in the New York Sun from 1894 described the machine as uncomfortable and noted that “its complexity and beautifully grotesque appearance must have been instrumental in its failure."
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Photograph courtesy Milwaukee Public Museum.
1893: The American Index 2
After selecting a character on this index machine, the typist pushes down the metal lever on the left to stamp it. The silver lever in the center is the space bar. The black part in the back moves back and forth with the paper as you type.
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Photograph courtesy Milwaukee Public Museum.
1905: The Hammond 12
Inventor James B. Hammond's model first appeared on the market in 1884. He thought that the two-row, half-moon-shaped keyboard was more practical than the three- or four-row version that eventually became the standard format. He called his style the "Ideal" keyboard. The Hammond 12 was the first "visible writer" of the company’s production line; the typist could now see her words as she typed them. -
Photograph courtesy Milwaukee Public Museum.
Circa 1909: The Hanson
This is the only model of its kind ever made—its inventor, Walter Hanson of Milwaukee, died when he was 21 years old. The machine is uniquely designed to type vertically rather than horizontally. Rather than the carriage return’s traditional shift from side to side, the roller in this model shot up and down. The vertical system was supposed to lead to a slightly faster response from the machine. The two tall rods in the back center held the large paper roller, where the keys would strike.