As soon as the Remington firm had agreed to undertake the manufacture of the new machine, the ample resources and the skillful workmen available at their great factory were brought into service in the further improvement of the typewriter. There was still much work to do, for the Sholes and Glidden machine, even after the years of labor expended upon it, was, after all, only the inventor’s crude model. Sholes and Glidden had worked out the basic ideas, and that was about all. To make these ideas practical, in a machine that could be produced and sold in quantities, now became the manufacturer’s task. It was a fortunate thing for the infant typewriter that the Remingtons had in their service at this time a notable group of mechanical master minds, and the efforts of these men were now centered on the new machine. Prominent in this group were William K. Jenne, Jefferson M. Clough, afterwards superintendent of the factory of the Winchester Arms Company, Byron A. Brooks, a professor of higher mathematics, and others. Brooks subsequently attained prominence in the field of typewriter invention. But the most notable personage among these men was William K. Jenne, and at this time the mantle passes from Sholes to Jenne, who became for many years the central figure in the history of the development of the typewriter on its mechanical side. It is true that Sholes, despite failing health, continued active in the invention of typewriter improvements during the greater part of his remaining days, but it was under the fostering care and supervision of Jenne that the Sholes and Glidden model of 1873 was transformed into the first commercial typewriter, and it was under his continued superintendence that this famous machine subsequently underwent one improvement after another until it finally won for itself an indispensable place in the world’s work.
Jenne, like Sholes, came of good New England stock. He inherited his mechanical genius from his father, Siloam Jenne, who was a skilled mechanic and an inventor of some repute in his day. It was in 1861, at the age of 23, that Jenne migrated from his Massachusetts home to the town of Ilion, in the Mohawk Valley, where he was destined to spend all of the remaining years of his long, active and useful life. These were the Civil War times, when E. Remington & Sons were busy on the big war contracts, and the fame of their guns had already spread to the four corners of the earth. Jenne almost immediately entered the Remington employ and, in the historic year 1873, he occupied an important position in their sewing machine department. From the time, however, of the arrival at Ilion of the Sholes and Glidden model he became identified with the typewriter exclusively. He soon became Superintendent of the Typewriter Works, which position he continued to hold for thirty years, until his retirement, full of honors, in the year 1904.
WILLIAM K. JENNE
Who Developed the First Commercial Typewriter
We now come to the fateful hour, the appearance on the market of the first commercial typewriter. The actual manufacture of the machine began in September, 1873, and it may be said that in this year and month occurred the birth of the practical writing machine. In the early part of the following year the first machines were completed and ready for sale. The machine was then known simply as “The Type-Writer.” Today it is known as the “Model 1 Remington” and it will always be known as the “Ancestor of All Writing Machines.”
CHAPTER IV.
SEEKING A MARKET
The general appearance of the first typewriter is well known. A considerable number of these machines are in existence, preserved in museums and other historical collections, and, until recent years, a few of them still remained in active service.