Burt’s Machine, 1829.
A few years after Projean’s effort we find a new influence at work. The electric telegraph had been invented, and the effort of inventors to produce a telegraphic printing mechanism gave an impetus to the idea of a writing machine. In 1840 the British Patent Office records the application of Alexander Bain and Thomas Wright on a writing machine for use in connection with the telegraph. These men were afterwards better known as the inventors of a telegraphic printer. As a typewriter, Bain’s device was of no value and scarcely deserves serious mention. A more important step in the progress of the art was taken by Charles Thurber of Worcester, Mass., to whom a patent was granted in 1843, followed by another in 1845. The Thurber machine of 1843 contains one notable advance; the letter spacing was effected by the longitudinal motion of a platen, a principle which is a feature of all modern machines. This machine did excellent work, but the printing mechanism was too slow for practical use and none were manufactured. A model of Thurber’s machine is now in the Smithsonian Institution at Washington, and a later model, showing important improvements, is preserved by the Worcester Society of Antiquarians.
Thurber’s other model of 1845 was not a typewriter at all, but a “writing machine” in the strictest sense. It was designed to perform the motions of the hand in writing, and was intended for the use of the blind. This attempt was a failure, but it illustrates again how prominently the needs of the blind figured in the efforts of the early inventors.
Thurber’s Machine, 1843.
The same is true of the next recorded effort, which was the invention of a blind man, Pierre Foucault, a teacher in the Paris Institution for the Blind. Foucault’s machine, which was patented in France in 1849, printed embossed letters for the blind very successfully. This machine attracted great attention and was awarded a gold medal at the World’s Fair at London, in 1851. Several of them were constructed and remained in service for a long time in institutions for the blind in different parts of Europe. But the machine never came into very general use.
The scene now re-crosses the Atlantic, where it is destined to remain until the appearance of the first practical typewriter. Oliver T. Eddy of Baltimore took out a patent in the year 1850. This machine, in the inventor’s own words, was “designed to furnish the means of substituting printed letters and signs for written ones in the transaction of every day business.” Eddy’s life record is one of the tragedies of early typewriter invention. He devoted many years of labor to his machine, and is said to have died in poverty after a futile appeal to the Government for assistance. The Eddy machine was highly ingenious and did good work, but was too cumbersome and intricate for practical use.
