After the initial invention of the typewriter, there were many other patents all over the world that were created. People made improvements both mechanically and aesthetically. During the early to mid-1800s, the typewriter was not very popular. There was some office use, but they were still generally uncommon in the public. The main reason for this was that they were not cheap enough to be accessible to the general public. Wanting to build a commercially successful typewriter, three men partnered up. Their names were Latham Sholes, Samuel Soule, and Carlos Glidden.[1] They worked together to create a model that they felt would be commercially successful and created their first model. However, they were not able to create a great typewriter while they were together. Their prototype was described by one of their sponsors as useless.[2] Glidden and Soule chose to end the partnership after the first typewriter they created was deemed a failure.
Glidden and Soule did not stop Sholes from continuing his mission to create a commercially successful typewriter. He continued to work and improve his machine. Finally, after making over 20 more models, Sholes created one that he felt was market ready and joined teams with the Remington Gun factory.[3] It was in these factories that the first truly commercially successful typewriter was created. This model was so successful and advanced that the model stated basically the same for 90 years.[4] Although the Remington no. 1 was deemed the first commercially successful typewriter, changes made by Sholes in the future made later models even more successful. The early Remington typewriter was still fairly expensive and not affordable for the “every man”. Additionally, there were still some technical issues that kept it from being completely successful, such as technical issues with typewriters jamming when someone typed too fast and aesthetic problems with upper and lowercase letters.[5] This did not stop Sholes, he continued to make changes to his model to make it more successful.
Many of these changes can be seen in Sholes’ Remington no. 2. One these changes was the standardization of QWERTY. This the order of the keys are the board. One of the biggest problems with the typewriter is that it would often jam when two keys next to each other were pushed one after the other. The change to the order of the keys made sure letters commonly typed together, such as “th”, would no longer be together and stopped a majority of the jamming problems.[6] Another change was the creation of the shift key. Prior to that all the letters were capitalized. While this was not a mechanical problem, it was a problem with aesthetics. With the creation of the shift key, people were able to better control what they wanted to write.[7] These changes were not only in Shole’s model, but in all the typewriters being created as Sholes created a standard that can still be seen today.
[1] Herbert Overleigh, “The Evolution of the Typewriter,” Belford’s Monthly and Democratic Review 8, no. 47 (April 1892): 163.
[2] P. G. Hubert, “The Typewriter; Its Growth and Uses,” The North American Review 146, no. 379 (1888): 3.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Darryl Rehrer, “The Typewriter,” Popular Mechanics 173, no. 8 (August 1996):56-59.
[5] Overleigh, 166.
[6] Rehrer, 56-59.
[7] Ibid.