Why typewriter was invented

It tells a story of innovations in technology and manufacturing. The adoption of the typewriter, at just the same time that women began to work in offices, reflected changes in women's roles, new ideas about the organization of work, and the rapidly growing corporations of the day.

In turn, the typewriter brought about and helped to accelerate social change, opening up new jobs for women in the office. Changes in Business and the Workplace. The typewriter, by reducing the time and expense involved in creating documents, encouraged the spread of systematic management.

It allowed a system of communications that shaped the business world. In , there were very few women office workers. In , there were nearly 45,, and 64 percent of stenographers and typists were women. Social Changes. In the s, when the typewriter was first adopted in many offices, America was a country in the throes of rapid change. The way in which the typewriter was adopted reflected changes in women's roles, new ideas about the organization of work, and the rapidly growing corporations of the day.

In turn, the typewriter opened up many new jobs for women in the office. Some diehards lingered on. The huge Burroughs Moon-Hopkins typewriter and accounting machine was a blind writer that was manufactured, amazingly enough, until the late s. Let's return for a moment to the 19th century.

There were many efforts to produce cheaper typewriters. Most of these were index machines: the typist first points at a letter on some sort of index, then performs another motion to print the letter. Obviously, these were not heavy-duty office machines; they were meant for people of limited means who needed to do some occasional typing. Index typewriters survived into the 20th century as children's toys; one commonly found example is the "Dial" typewriter made by Marx Toys in the s and 30s.

Much more could be said about the hundreds of makes of early typewriters -- and I do in Chapter 2 of my book. To get some different perspectives, try looking through my collection list or my wish list. For further reading, check out the typewriter-collecting resources. Our Privacy Policy sets out how Oxford University Press handles your personal information, and your rights to object to your personal information being used for marketing to you or being processed as part of our business activities.

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I have been collecting 19th century typewriters for 30 years and have had many wonderful adventures in doing so. The history of the typewriter is certainly incomplete or narrowed down to the USA. I have in front of me copy of a perfectly typewritten document in Danish dated and signed by hand 25 November , I.

I could send you a copy if you wish. What happened to the s to s as tve manual moved to electric typewriter and then the dame keyboard moved to the first desktop pcs. Reference Online As a pioneer of scholarly reference publishing, Oxford University Press has seen many prestigious projects through the decades including the Oxford English Dictionary and the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Read More. By Steven Filippi June 23 rd The first machine known as the typewriter was patented on 23rd June , by printer and journalist Christopher Latham Sholes of Wisconsin. This is the printed patent drawing for a typewriter invented by Christopher L. Sholes, Carlos Glidden, and J.