FROM THE ARCHIVES:The first typewriters were advertised as cures for "pen paralysis", blindness and curvature of the spine, the Irishman's Diary discovered when given the opportunity to try one out.
‘COULD I try it?’ I asked Mr. Roy Bandy diffidently.
“Of course,” said Mr. Bandy. “Let this gent have a go, Miss.”
The personable young woman in the bustle gave me her place (she would be personable even without a bustle) and I faced the keyboard.
“What should I play?” I asked Mr. Bandy.
“What’s wrong good old ‘Now is the time for all good men and true?’,” said he.
I didn’t know I was so good. I must have batted out the message in 30 seconds flat, but when Mr. Bandy showed me the paper it read: “NOW IS THE TI?E FOR ALL GOOD ?EN AND TRUE TO CO?E TO THE AID OF THE PARTY.”
“Should have warned you about that M”, said Mr. B. “It was in a different place on the old keyboard . . .”
I felt as close to history as if I’d just knocked out an arpeggio or two from “Let Erin Remember” on the old Brian Boru harp, for the machine that I’d typed on was one of the original Remingtons from the gilded year of 1873.
Mr. Bandy let me see a copy of the original advertising circular. The new-fangled machine rated a hyphen then, and was heralded as “The Type-Writer! A machine to supersede the Pen.” It was recommended as ideal for stenographers, authors and dramatic writers, and was endorsed by Mark Twain, Henry Howard, the Governor of Rhode Island, and the Editor of the Utica Morning Herald.
“The Type-Writer,” that original blurb said, “in size and appearance somewhat resembles the Family Sewing Machine. It is graceful and ornamental – a beautiful piece of furniture for any office study, or parlour . . . The ‘action’ is fully as rapid as that of the piano . . . The average speed of the the pen is from 15 to 30 words a minute. The average speed of the Type-Writer is from 30 to 60 words a minute . . .”
“It is manifest,” the circular goes on, “that the drudgery of writing with the pen whereby a single set of muscles is used, and a constrained position of the body necessitated, is overcome. No fear of pen paralysis, loss of sight or curvature of the spine from using the machine . . .”
The first American patent was granted to William Burt in 1829, and the next in 1843, to a Charles Thurber of Worcester, Mass.
He was the inventor of the roller platen. I wonder if he was an ancestor of the immortal James? Christopher Sholes developed the first practical typewriter in 1866, and Remingtons, who had turned from armaments after the Civil War, and were making ploughshares and sewing machines took up its commercial possibilities. They little knew that they were opening the doors of commerce to a new breed, and laying the foundation of a revolutionary order, in which the hand that rock the space-bar rules the world.