Practical typewriter (Sholes and Glidden)
Máquina de escribir práctica (Sholes y Glidden)
- Date
- 1867-1868 · confidence high
- Place
- Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States
- Credited to
- Christopher Latham Sholes, Carlos Glidden and Samuel Soulé
- People
- 👤 Carlos Glidden1834–1877👤 Christopher Sholes1819–1890👤 Samuel W. Soule1830–1875
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
The first mass-produced typewriter (made by Remington from 1874), with a QWERTY keyboard designed to prevent the typebars from jamming. It mechanised office writing.
Rasmus Malling-Hansen marketed his 'writing ball' in Denmark in 1870, before Remington; Sholes's was the first to achieve mass industrial success. Patented in 1868.
What it led to
- The modern office and corporate bureaucracy
- The mass entry of women into clerical work (typists)
- The QWERTY keyboard as the standard to this day
- The standardisation of business correspondence
Built on
- Carbon paper1806
- Sewing machine1830-1851
- Typewriters of Mill (1714), Turri (1808), Progin (1833) and Hansen ('writing ball', Copenhagen, 1865)