The Progress of Invention in the Nineteenth Century.

by Edward W. Byrn

FIG. 136.—THURBER TYPEWRITER.

On Aug. 26, 1843, Charles Thurber, of Worcester, Mass., took out Pat. No. 3,228 for a Printing Machine. Under the patent he constructed the machine shown in [Fig. 136]. This differed somewhat from the form shown in his patent, in that the machine shows a paper feed roller which does not appear in the patent. This machine was found among the effects of Mr. Thurber after having lain neglected and unnoticed for many years, and its damaged parts were restored by Mr. H. R. Cummings, of Worcester. The types are carried on the lower ends of a circular series of depressible bars, which are spring seated in a horizontal rotatable wheel. By turning the wheel any type can be brought to the front, and a stationary guide controls its descent as it makes the impression. An inking roller is seen on the right, which inks the faces of the type. In front of the type wheel is a horizontal roller to which the sheet of paper is attached by clips. Finger pawls, working into ratchets at the ends of the roller, serve to rotate it after each line is printed. By means of a handle, seen projecting from the right hand side of the frame, the roller is shifted longitudinally on its axis rod after each letter has been printed. This appears to be the first embodiment of the feed roller rotating to bring a new line into range, and having also a longitudinal feed, but as these movements were required to be separately executed by the operator, the work of the machine was necessarily very slow. Just at what time this old Thurber machine was constructed it is impossible to state in the light of present information, but as the feed roller did not appear in Thurber’s patent of 1843, it is possible that the claim to authorship of the feed roller having both a rotary and a longitudinal movement may be maintained in behalf of J. Jones, whose Pat. No. 8,980 of June 1, 1852, appears to be the first dated record of such a feed roller. Jones was also the first to provide a spring to automatically retract the paper carriage to the position for beginning a new line, the spring being put under tension by the movement of the paper carriage in printing.

FIG. 137.—BEACH TYPEWRITER.

Prominent among those whose genius has served to perfect the typewriter occurs the name of A. E. Beach, for many years of the firm of Munn & Co., and well known to the readers of the Scientific American. Mr. Beach’s first model of a typewriter was made in 1847. It printed upon a sheet of paper supported on a roller, carried in a sliding frame worked by a ratchet and pawl. It had a weight for running the frame, letter and line spacing keys, paper feeding devices, line signal bell, and carbon tissue. It had a series of finger keys connected with printing levers which were arranged in a circle, and struck at a common center. This machine was said to have worked well, but was laid aside for further improvement. In the meantime he constructed a typewriter to print in raised letters, without ink. This machine, which was intended primarily for the use of the blind, is illustrated in [Figs. 137] and [138]. It was first publicly exhibited in operation at the Crystal Palace Exhibition of the American Institute in the fall of 1856, where it attracted great attention and took the gold medal. The embossed letters were printed on a ribbon of paper which ran centrally through the machine. The printing levers were arranged in a circle in pairs, one riding on the top of the other. When the operator pressed a key, the two printing levers of each pair answering to the letter key were brought together, the paper being between them. The printing type were at the extremities of the levers, one lever having a raised letter, and its mate a sunken or intaglio letter, which, seizing the paper strip between them, like the jaws of a pair of pincers, impressed therein an embossed letter. The patent for this machine was granted June 24, 1856, No. 15,164, but the machine showed a much higher degree of development than appeared in the patent. This machine was the earliest representative of the circular basket of radially swinging type levers, combined with finger keys assembled in a keyboard at one side, which is now an almost universal feature, and the suggestion which it handed down to subsequent inventors has doubtless done much to make the typewriter the practical machine that it is to-day.

FIG. 138.—CENTRAL SECTION OF BEACH TYPEWRITER.

Up to the year 1868, however, typewriting machines were mere illustrations of sporadic genius occuring here and there as the pet hobby of some humanitarian seeking to help the blind, or supplement the deficiencies of the tremulous fingers of the paralytic. It had not yet come to be regarded as of any special use, nor had even the demand for such a device been forcibly felt, until the last quarter of the Nineteenth Century began to accumulate its wonderful momentum of progress and prosperity. The man whose genius finally brought forth a practical typewriter, and made a permanent place for it in the daily business of the world, was C. Latham Sholes. As joint inventor with C. Glidden and S. W. Soule, all of Milwaukee, he took out patents No. 79,265, of June 23, 1868, and No. 79,868, of July 14, 1868. These, together with Sholes’ Pat. No. 118,491, of Aug. 29, 1871, formed the working basis of the first typewriters that went into office use. These typewriters were first introduced to the general public under the management of the original inventors (Sholes, Soule and Glidden) about 1873, and at first used only capital letters. On Aug. 27, 1878, a further patent. No. 207,559, was granted to Sholes, and about this time, after five years of uncertain and precarious business existence, the machine was taken for manufacture to E. Remington & Sons, at Ilion, N. Y. Since this time the well-known “Remington” has built up for itself a reputation and a commercial importance that has given it first place among typewriters. In the nine years from 1873 to 1882, it is said that less than 8,000 machines had been manufactured. In the year 1882 Wyckoff, Seamans & Benedict obtained control of the machine, and during the fourteen years following it is said that nearly 200,000 “Remingtons” were made and sold. It is said that 1,000 men are now employed in making this machine, and that the present output is about 800 machines a week, despite the fact that it has a half dozen worthy competitors for public favor. The modern Remington, seen in [Fig. 139], is too well known to require special description. Besides the Sholes patents, it embodies the improvements covered by patents to Clough & Jenne, No. 199,263, Jan. 15, 1878; Jenne, No. 478,964, July 12, 1892, and No. 548,553, Oct. 22, 1895, and also a patent to Brooks, No. 202,923, April 30, 1878, a characteristic feature of which latter is the location of both a capital and small letter on the same striking lever, and the shifting of the paper roller by a key to bring either the large or small letter into printing range.