The accompanying illustration, however, shows one of these machines which has a special interest all its own. This was the first individual typewriter ever manufactured and offered for sale. This machine was one of the first consignment of typewriters sent to the Western Electric Company, who were the original western selling agents. Later it came into the possession of the late Walter J. Barron, who had been a friend of Sholes, and afterwards became the inventor of a number of important typewriter improvements. Many years later Mr. Barron presented it to the Remington Historical Collection.
A single glance at this machine will show what a transformation had been wrought by the skilled Remington mechanics in the crude Sholes and Glidden model of the previous year. A more careful examination will reveal how primitive it still was compared with the efficient writing machines of the present day. The first thing that will strike the most casual observer is the obvious sewing machine influence, in fact it has sewing machine “written all over it.” In this we undoubtedly see the hand of Jenne, who, for years before he took up work on the typewriter, had been connected with the sewing-machine branch of the Remington business. This influence appears in the fitting of the machine to a stand, in the familiar grape-vine design of the pedestals, and especially in the curious foot treadle which operated the carriage return. The latter, however, quickly demonstrated its uselessness as a time saver, and was soon displaced by the now familiar hand carriage-return lever. After the disappearance of the foot treadle, the stand itself soon followed into the discard.
Another interesting feature is the metal case which completely encloses the machine. This in time gave way to the now familiar open construction, but it is worth noting that in recent years a tendency has set in to return to the enclosed feature of the first typewriter.
This original machine had many limitations, but the worst one of all was the fact that it had no shift-key mechanism—it wrote capital letters only.
THE FIRST COMMERCIAL TYPEWRITER
Model 1 Remington, Shop No. 1.
Nevertheless, the fundamental principles of construction embodied in this first typewriter still survive, though their application has since been modified or transformed in the march of improvement. In this original machine we find the escapement or step-by-step “pulse beat,” which causes the letter spacing, we find the type bars hung in such a manner that the type all strike the paper at a common printing point, and we find a mechanism for the return of the carriage and line spacing of the cylinder. Most interesting of all, we find the “universal keyboard” in very nearly its present form. This was not an innovation introduced by Jenne or any of his co-workers, for, tracing back to the Sholes and Glidden model of the previous year, we find a very close approach to the same thing.
Who invented the universal keyboard?—meaning the present universal arrangement of the letters on the typewriter keys. Of all the questions concerning the origin of the typewriter or any of its features, this is the one most frequently asked. The answer is that the universal keyboard, with some minor variations, has been standard since the invention of the writing machine.
Some believe that the universal keyboard was invented by Alexander Davidson, a mechanic and surveyor of West Virginia, who was also one of the pioneers in the field of commercial education. It is known that Davidson, in the later seventies, made a special study of the subject of scientific keyboard arrangement. But there is no evidence that Davidson ever saw a typewriter before the year 1875, at which time the keyboard had already assumed the “universal” form.