The time—the winter of the year 1866–67.
The place—a little machine shop in the outskirts of the city of Milwaukee.
The scene—three men, all middle aged, thoughtful and studious, each one hard at work on a pet
invention of his own, without a thought in the mind of any one of them of the great
achievement which was destined to come out of this chance association.
Thus was the stage set for the invention of the first practical typewriter, though
nearly seven years were yet to elapse before its actual production began in the little
town of Ilion, New York.
One of these three men, Carlos Glidden, the son of a successful ironmonger of Ohio,
was engaged in developing a mechanical “spader” to take the place of a plow.
The other two, Samuel W. Soulé and Christopher Latham Sholes, both printers by trade,
were engaged in developing a machine for numbering serially the pages of blank books
and the like.
Of these men, the central figure in the association subsequently formed was Christopher
Latham Sholes, a [31]name which must always occupy the place of highest honor in any history of the writing
machine.
Sholes was born in Columbia County, Penn., on February 14, 1819. He came of the oldest
New England stock and his ancestors had served with distinction in the War of the
Revolution. His grandfather on the maternal side was a lineal descendant of John and
Priscilla Alden, so the spirit of the pioneer was a part of his inheritance. It is
also of deep significance that Sholes was a printer and publisher by trade, the most
closely allied mechanical arts to typewriting that the world then knew. As a publisher,
Sholes knew, from the necessities of his own occupation, the vital help that a writing
machine would offer. And it certainly accords with the fitness of things that, after
the lapse of four centuries, the art of Gutenberg should have furnished, in one of
its disciples, the inventor of the typewriter.
At the age of fourteen young Sholes was apprenticed to the editor of the Intelligencer of Danville, Pa., to learn the printing trade, but four years later he joined his
brother, Charles C. Sholes, well known in the early politics of Wisconsin, then living
in Green Bay. A frail constitution, with a tendency to consumption, of which disease
he finally died, seems to have influenced his early removal to what was then a wild
region at the edge of the great pine forest. In the following year, when only nineteen
years old, he took charge of the House Journal of the Wisconsin Territorial Legislature,
which he carried [32]to Philadelphia to be printed; a long and difficult journey at that time. In 1839
we find him at Madison, where he became editor of the Wisconsin Inquirer, owned by his brother Charles. In the following year he went to Kenosha, where he
edited the Southport Telegraph, afterwards the Kenosha Telegraph, and four years later was appointed postmaster of the town.
Sholes’s activities as a journalist finally took him into Wisconsin politics, a career
for which, in character and temperament, he was very poorly fitted. Nevertheless,
he served two terms as state senator, in 1848 and 1849 from Racine County, and in
1856 and 1857 from Kenosha County. In 1852 and 1853 he represented Kenosha in the
assembly. While a member of the council he was a witness of the homicide of one of
the members by another, a tragedy made familiar to the world by Charles Dickens in
“American Notes.” The account given by Dickens was taken from Sholes’s own paper,
the Southport Telegraph. In 1860 Sholes removed to Milwaukee, where he had an active and varied career, first
as postmaster, and later as commissioner of public works and collector of customs.
He was also for a long time editor of the Milwaukee Daily Sentinel and the Milwaukee News. It was in 1866, while serving as collector of customs for the Port of Milwaukee,
that the invention of the typewriter enters the story.
On the personal side much more could be written concerning Sholes, for he was a man
of very unusual and [34]attractive character. Some might have called him an eccentric, but his eccentricities
were of a kind which endeared him to everyone. He is described as one of the most
unselfish, kind-hearted and companionable men that ever lived. He was also a man of
extreme personal modesty, and of almost excessive tenderness of conscience, viewed
from the usual business standpoint. He was always more than just to others and less
than just to himself. Some phases of his character were a puzzle. As an editor he
made it a rule to copy into his own paper all the adverse criticisms that were passed
upon him by his political adversaries, and some of them were very bitter and unjust,
and he would always omit all complimentary notice of himself and his work. Gentle
and lovable, cultured and brilliant, modest and unselfish, these were the outstanding
characteristics of Christopher Latham Sholes.
He was not the kind of man ever to make much money. In the days before the typewriter
he had, by a fortunate chance, acquired wealth, but he did not keep it. The typewriter
gave him another opportunity, but he let it pass. From first to last he was singularly
indifferent to worldly fortune. One day, in his later years, he remarked to a friend
that he had been trying all his life to escape becoming a millionaire and he thought
he had succeeded admirably. He was always a visionary, and one of his visions was
of a human Utopia which should witness the abolition of greed and poverty and the
dawn of universal [35]love. Call him a dreamer if you will, but one day he dreamed a dream which he proceeded
to translate into a wonderful reality, which has placed the whole world in his everlasting
debt.
The typewriter was not the first evidence of Sholes’s inventive genius. Years before
he had been the first to conceive of the method of addressing newspapers by printing
the names of subscribers on the margin. His more recent work on the machine for paging
blank books brings us to the beginning of the typewriter story. But all else is now
obscured by the memory of his crowning achievement, the invention of the writing machine.
What was the influence which caused these three men, Sholes, Soulé and Glidden, to
drop the inventions on which they had been working and to pool their interests in
a new and far greater undertaking?
According to one story, the idea arose out of a chance remark of Glidden’s, who had
become interested in Sholes’s paging machine and one day said, “Why cannot such a machine be made that will write letters and words and not figures
only?” Nothing further was said or done at the time, but in the summer of the following
year (1867) a copy of the Scientific American, which quoted an article from a London technical journal, fell into the hands of
Glidden. It described a machine called the “Pterotype,” invented by John Pratt, which
was designed to do just what Glidden had suggested. This invention had inspired an
editorial in the same issue of the paper [36]which pointed out the great benefit to mankind which such a machine would confer,
as well as the fortune that awaited the successful inventor. Glidden immediately brought
this article to the attention of Sholes, and it appealed so strongly to his imagination
that he decided to see what could be done.
General William G. LeDue, whose own interest in the invention of a typewriter dated
back to 1850, and who subsequently was the first man to introduce the machine into
the Government service at Washington, tells how, in 1867, he visited Milwaukee and
found Sholes, together with Glidden, at work on the book-paging machine, and suggested
to them the idea of a typewriter.
These two accounts are in no sense contradictory. When an idea is “in the air,” it
is natural to find more than one influence at work. At any rate, we soon find Sholes
working whole-heartedly on the new idea, assisted by Glidden and Soulé, both of whom
had been invited to join in the enterprise. None of these men, so far as we know,
had any knowledge at the time of any previous attempts to invent a typewriter, with
the single exception of John Pratt’s “Pterotype” already mentioned. In the building
of the new machine they were, at the outset, wholly dependent on their own creative
efforts. All of them were amply endowed with inventive talent, but not one of the
three was a mechanical engineer by profession, or even a mechanic by trade, and they
needed the help of the skilled mechanics at Kleinsteuber’s machine shop [37]in the carrying out of their ideas. Of these mechanics, Matthias Schwalbach is the
man who figures most prominently in this story. Schwalbach had already helped Sholes
in developing his paging machine, and, when the efforts of the three inventors were
transferred to the typewriter, he entered into the new work with interest and enthusiasm.
As the work went on Schwalbach began to do more than merely carry out the ideas of
Sholes; he developed some ideas of his own which were of the greatest help to the
inventors.
The work went steadily onward and by autumn of the year 1867 the first machine had
been made, although no patent was taken out until June of the year following. This
first machine had innumerable defects and was a crude affair in every way. But it
wrote accurately and rapidly, and that was the main point. Moreover, as a self-advertiser, it soon scored a notable
triumph. A number of letters were written with it and sent to friends, among these
one to James Densmore, then of Meadville, Pa. Densmore was immediately interested.
[38]Like Sholes and Soulé, he had been both editor and printer, and could well realize the importance of such
a machine. Densmore was a practical man of affairs, with imagination, foresight, energy
and courage unbounded. Instantly he saw the possibilities of the new invention and
shortly afterwards he purchased, by the payment of all expenses already incurred,
an interest in the new machine before he had so much as seen it. Densmore did not
actually see the typewriter until March of the following year (1868). He then pronounced
it good for nothing save to show that the idea was feasible, and pointed out many
defects that would need to be remedied before it would be available for practical
uses. Shortly afterwards Soulé dropped out of the enterprise, leaving it to Sholes, Glidden and Densmore.
The relationship which then began between Sholes and Densmore was a strange meeting
of opposites, for two men more unlike could hardly be imagined. Densmore is described
as bold, aggressive and arrogant. If Sholes was a dreamer and an idealist, Densmore
in some respects was a plain “crank.” He was a vegetarian of the militant type, and
did not hesitate to remonstrate with meat eaters, even total strangers in public restaurants.
His own diet consisted mainly of raw apples, a reminder of the raw turnips of Colonel
Sellers. He was always impervious to the shafts of ridicule and insensible to slights.
Indomitable and resolute, in the pursuit of any object he could not be discouraged
or repulsed. But Densmore, [40]in his own rough way, was usually kind to the gentle Sholes, and it may be set down
to his credit that more than once, during the years of inventive struggle from 1867
to 1873, when difficulties thickened and Sholes, if left to his own devices, would
have become discouraged, Densmore’s unquenchable faith was the salvation of the infant
enterprise.
The relationship between Densmore and Sholes reminds us in some respects of the similar
relationship in the eighteenth century between Boulton and James Watt. During these
years Densmore consistently played the part of Boulton to Sholes, who, under his urging,
continued to build model after model, until twenty-five or thirty had been made. Each
one of these marked some improvement over the last, but in the hands of practical
users each one showed some defect and broke down under the strain of actual use. It
was not until early in the year 1873 that the machine was deemed sufficiently perfected
for actual manufacture.
In the meantime other men had entered the typewriter story. One of these was James
Ogilvie Clephane of Washington, D. C., who, years after, became closely identified
with Ottmer Mergenthaler, the inventor of the Linotype. It was thus the unusual distinction
of Clephane to place his name in intimate association with two of the greatest inventions
of our times.
Clephane’s role in the case of the typewriter was that of practical tester. As an
official shorthand reporter, he [41]had a complete and instant appreciation of the boon that the new machine would confer
on his own profession, and he faithfully and gladly tried out one model after another
sent to him by the inventors. He was severe in his criticisms of the defects of these
models, as they revealed themselves in actual service, so much so that Sholes frequently
became disheartened. But it was all in a good cause, and Densmore kept assuring Sholes
that such tests were just what were needed to reveal the weak points. Thus by slow
degrees the original conceptions of the inventors were modified by their growing knowledge
of practical requirements.
Mr. Charles E. Weller, during this period of typewriter development, played a role
similar to that of Clephane. Mr. Weller, now a resident of La Porte, Ind., is the
only present-day survivor of the many friends of Sholes, and his invaluable little
book, “The Early History of the Typewriter” is the most intimate picture of the character
and struggles of the inventor that we now possess. Weller was in personal contact
with Sholes almost from the beginning. In July, 1867, when resident in Milwaukee working
as a telegraph operator and student of shorthand, he tells how Sholes came into the
telegraph office one day to secure a sheet of carbon paper, a rare article in those
days. Weller knew Sholes as an inventive genius, and his curiosity was immediately
aroused. Sholes told him that if he would call at his office he would be glad to show
him something interesting, [42]and Sholes kept his word. What Weller saw was a crude experimental affair rigged up
with a single key, like a telegraph transmitter, which printed through the carbon
paper a single letter wwwww. But it printed this letter in sequence as fast as the
key could be operated. “If you will bear in mind,” says Weller, “that at that time
we had never known of printing by any other method than the slow process of setting
the types and getting an impression therefrom by means of a press, you may imagine
our surprise at the facility with which this one letter of the alphabet could be printed
by the manipulation of the key.” Sholes then explained how he was developing this
idea into a machine which would print in similar manner any and all letters of the
alphabet—in other words a complete writing machine. Weller, shortly after, removed
to St. Louis, to take up the profession of shorthand reporter. On leaving, Sholes
promised to send him, for practical testing, the first completed model and in January,
1868, the machine arrived. Sholes, in the meantime, had chosen his own name for this
machine, which he called a “type-writer.” And thus to the inventor himself fell the honor of christening his own creation
with the name which has always been universal among English speaking users.
The proper naming of the typewriter had been quite as long and difficult a job as
the evolution of the practical machine itself. Those who came before Sholes failed
in this, quite as much as in their inventive efforts. Henry [43]Mill did not even attempt to name his invention. Burt called his a “Typographer.”
Thurber called his first machine a “Patent Printer”; his second a “Mechanical Chirographer.”
Eddy, like Mill, made no effort to find a name. Jones called his invention a “Mechanical
Typographer”; Beach called his an improvement in “Printing Instruments for the Blind”;
Francis called his an improvement in “Printing Machines”; Harger called his an “Improved
Mechanical Typographer”; DeMay also described his machine as an “Improved Mechanical
Typographer or Printing Apparatus.” Livermore, following the same lead, called his
an “Improved Hand Printing Device or Mechanical Typographer.” Peeler stated that he
had invented a new and valuable “Machine for Writing and Printing.” Hall did a little
better when he described his invention as a “Machine for Writing with Type or Printing
on Paper or Other Substance.” Of all those who began before Sholes, the only one who
showed any originality in picking a name was John Pratt with his “Pterotype,” a word
the meaning of which few people knew. It remained for Sholes himself, in his simple,
direct way, to hit upon a name which no one has ever been able to improve upon.
During the next few years, Weller tested out the machine that Sholes had sent him,
and also later models, in connection with his work as shorthand reporter. The letters
he received from Sholes during these years, addressed to “Charlie” and “Friend Charlie,”
every one of [44]them typed by Sholes himself on his own machine, are striking word pictures of the
writer in all his changing moods. In one we read, “The machine is done, and I want
some more worlds to conquer. Life would be most flat, stale and unprofitable without
something to invent.” Again only two months later, “I have made another most important
change in the machine,” etc. Six months later, “I have now a machine which is an entirely
new thing. I have been running this about two months, and in all that time it has
not developed a single difficulty. In fact any such thing as trouble or bother has
ceased to enter into the calculation.” This sounds good and it sounds final, but listen
to the last letter of the series, written two years later, on April 30, 1873. “The
machine is no such thing as it was when you last saw it. In fact you would not recognize
it.” Sholes is always through and yet never through. But this time, as far as Sholes
is concerned, the word was indeed final, for when this last letter was written the
historic contract which placed the manufacture and further development of his machine
in the hands of E. Remington & Sons, the famous gunmakers, had already been made.
All of this happened more than half a century ago, and now, after all these years,
“Friend Charlie” begins to figure again in this story. Throughout his long life, Mr.
Weller’s devotion to the memory of Sholes has been unbounded, and recently, despite
advanced years, he has become the leading spirit in a movement instituted by the [45]National Shorthand Reporters’ Association to erect a monument to mark the last resting
place of Sholes in Forest Home Cemetery, Milwaukee, which will be worthy of his name
and fame as one of the world’s great inventors. It is earnestly to be hoped that the
efforts of “The C. Latham Sholes Monument Commission” to raise the necessary funds
will soon be successful, in order that the erection of this monument may commemorate
this anniversary year of the writing machine.
While Weller and Clephane, late in the sixties, were demonstrating the utility of
the new machine in connection with shorthand reporting, another man was doing similar
pioneer work in an entirely different field. This man was E. Payson Porter, an honored
name in the history of telegraphy, and long known as the dean of American telegraphers.
Porter first saw one of the Sholes models in 1868, at which time he was employed as
an operator in the Chicago office of the Western Union Telegraph Company, and he astonished
the inventor by the rapidity with which he manipulated the keys at first sight. His
skill was due to the fact that he had formerly worked a House telegraph printer. Sholes,
of course, was delighted. He promised Porter the finest machine he could make, upon
condition that he could receive on the typewriter as fast as any telegrapher could
send a message. In due time the machine arrived in Chicago, and Porter thus describes
the demonstration which followed. “A sounder and key were placed upon the table and
General [46]Stager was the first to manipulate the same for me to copy, which I did readily. Colonel
Lynch then attempted to ‘rush’ me, and failing to do so, an ‘expert’ sender was sent
for from the operating room. A thorough trial of my ability to ‘keep up’ resulted
so satisfactorily that the typewriter was taken into the operating room.”
This demonstration was made in the year 1869, and Porter’s description of it gives
the whole gist of typewriting in its relation to telegraphy. It lies simply in the
superior speed of the “mill,” as telegraphers call the typewriter, over handwriting,
in receiving over the wire, and it is just this difference in speed which in the past
forty years has revolutionized the telegrapher’s profession. The partnership between
telegraphy and the “mill” is as firmly established today as that other partnership
between the typewriter and shorthand, and it is worth noting that, in each case, the
reality of this partnership was demonstrated at least five years before the first
typewriter was actually placed on the market.
The mention of telegraphy brings another name into this story, that of no less a personage
than Thomas A. Edison. It has been said of this universal inventive genius that he
has figured in some way in connection with nearly every development in the field of
mechanical progress during the last half century; so it is not surprising to find
his name written into the story of the typewriter. Early in the seventies Edison had
a shop in Newark, N. J., and he tells how Sholes came there to consult [47]with him concerning his invention; a natural thing for Sholes to do, for even in those
early days the fame of “The Wizard” was nation-wide. Edison was able to give Sholes
some very valuable assistance. Later on, Edison helped D. W. Craig, a former general
manager of the Associated Press, in the development of a machine, built on typewriter
principles, designed to facilitate the transmission of telegrams. Edison also did
some typewriter inventing on his own account. His patent of December 10, 1872, is
for an electrically operated traveling wheel device, which was the forerunner of the
stock-ticker printing machine in use today.
Of the twenty-five to thirty experimental models, built [48]by Sholes and Glidden during the years from 1867 to 1873, only a few are now in existence.
But though many links in this chain are missing, it is fortunate that the two most
important ones are still preserved, the first and the last. The first model constructed
by Sholes, Soulé and Glidden, now in the Smithsonian Institution at Washington (Patent
of June 23, 1868), shows a machine so crude that it would hardly be recognized as
a typewriter. A second model, also in the Smithsonian Institution (Patent of July
14, 1868), is of equal interest because it has been identified by Weller as identical
with the first machine sent to him by Sholes for practical testing. This machine shows
a great advance over the other. Both machines, however, have the up-strike pivoted
type bar, a feature which afterwards became standard for many years in typewriter
construction. The last model of the long series was the one shown to the Remingtons
in 1873, when the contract was made for the manufacture of the typewriter. This model,
now in the historical collection at the home office of the Remington Typewriter Company
in New York, although a crude affair, judged by present-day standards, contains many
of the fundamental features of the modern type-bar machines.
The quality of the writing done by these early models is better known today than the
machines themselves, for this writing has been preserved to us in Sholes’s own letters.
From the day when Sholes completed his first model, he seems to have discarded the
pen entirely. [49]From that time all his personal letters are typewritten, the signature included, which
would be considered extreme, even by the present-day business man. As for the quality
of the typing in these letters, let it speak for itself. The letter shown on page
51, the original of which is in the Remington Historical Collection, was written by
Sholes from Milwaukee on June 9, 1872.
The typing in this letter is interesting because it shows capital letters only, to
which all the Sholes models were restricted. But even more interesting is the contents
of [50]the letter itself, for in it we find Sholes in one of his not infrequent fits of deep
despondency.
“We shall be in a position,” he says, “to furnish good machines provided any person
is in a position to want them after they are furnished. You know that my apprehension
is that the thing may take for a while, and for a while there may be an active demand
for them, but that, like any other novelty, it will have its brief day and be thrown
aside. Of course I earnestly hope that such will not prove to be the case, and Densmore
laughs at the idea when I suggest it, but I should like to be sure that it would be
otherwise.”
Think of it! The typewriter a mere passing novelty! And think of such an idea entering
the head of the inventor of the machine! How much better he was building than he knew!
As we look back on this period of typewriter history we hardly know which to admire
more, Sholes’s inventive genius or Densmore’s sustaining faith.
Of equal interest is a photograph from the same historical collection, dating from
the same year, 1872. It shows the daughter of Sholes operating another one of his
experimental models. What motive, we wonder, ever induced Miss Sholes to take such
an interest in the machine, to learn to operate it, and to have her photograph taken
seated before it? Probably it was only a daughter’s natural interest in her father’s
invention. It is difficult to believe that Miss Sholes foresaw the wonderful future
[53]of the machine in connection with woman’s work. Yet, as an accidental prophecy, this
photograph of the first woman who ever operated a typewriter should be of interest
to every one of the vast army of women who today owe their living to the writing machine.
The time now draws near for the opening of the second chapter of typewriter history,
the entrance into the story of the great house of E. Remington & Sons. In casting
about for a suitable manufacturer for the new invention, the minds of the inventors
turned naturally to the noted gunmakers who had already made the name Remington famous.
The origin and the rise of the house of Remington carries us back many years into
the past. The story goes that in 1816 a young boy named Eliphalet Remington, who was
working with his father at their forge in the beautiful Ilion Gorge in the Mohawk
Valley, asked his father for money to buy a rifle and was refused. Nothing daunted,
the boy Eliphalet welded a gun barrel from scraps of iron collected around the forge,
walked fourteen miles to Utica to have it rifled, and finally had a weapon that was
the envy of his neighbors. Soon he was making and selling other guns, and step by
step the old forge grew into the great gun factory which in Civil War times did so
much to equip the northern armies in the great struggle. In time the firm made big
contracts to supply arms to foreign governments; they also added other lines of manufacture,
including sewing machines and agricultural implements. In 1873, when the typewriter
[54]begins to figure in the Remington story, the first Eliphalet, the boy gunmaker of
1816, had already been twelve years in his grave, and the business was in charge of
his three sons, Philo, Samuel and Eliphalet, Jr. At the time of the signing of the
typewriter contract, Samuel was absent in Europe. The president and active head of
the business was the elder brother, Philo, and it was Philo Remington who was destined
to father the new machine with his name and devote his utmost efforts and resources
to its manufacture and sale.
It was late in the month of February, 1873, that Densmore came to the Remington Works
at Ilion, bringing with him the precious model that was the culmination of six years
of effort and struggle. Sholes, it appears, did not accompany Densmore on this journey,
which perhaps was just as well, for he was far too modest a man to make a good pleader
of his own cause. But Densmore did not go alone. He was accompanied by G. W. N. Yost,
with whom Densmore had formerly been associated in the oil transportation business
in Pennsylvania. The story of how Densmore came to invite Yost to join him is curious.
It seems that he wanted the assistance of Yost’s well known fluency, in persuading
the Remingtons. Evidently Densmore must have felt keenly the fatefulness of his errand,
for this is the only case on record where he failed to show the most complete confidence
in himself.
George Washington Newton Yost—to give him the [55]full benefit of his sonorous name—was a salesman par excellence. He had proved it
in the oil business. He was destined to prove it again in after years, when he sold
more typewriters through his own personal powers of persuasion than any other man
in the early days of the business. Had Yost possessed equal ability as an organizer
and sales director he might have written his name into this story as the man who made
the typewriter a commercial success, for fortune gave him every opportunity. Fate,
however, had reserved this achievement for other men.
It is now fifty years since the signing of the history-making contract between the
owners of the typewriter [56]and the Remingtons, and all but one of the actors in these scenes have long since
gone to their rest. It is fortunate, however, that there is one man now living who
was present and an active participator in the conferences which resulted in the signing
of the contract, and his memory of them is as vivid as though they were the events
of yesterday. This man is Henry Harper Benedict, who afterwards became one of the
founders of the commercial success of the writing machine.
Mr. Benedict, like others whose names figure prominently in this story, was a native
Herkimer County boy. In 1869, after taking a degree at Hamilton College, he accepted
a position with E. Remington & Sons, with whom he remained for thirteen years in a
confidential capacity, becoming in time a director on the board of the corporation
and treasurer of the Remington Sewing Machine Company. The story of the typewriter
contract, and the events leading up to it, is thus told in Mr. Benedict’s own words.
“Mr. Philo Remington’s office and mine communicated. One day I saw on the mantelpiece
in his office an envelope addressed to him in something that looked like print. I
asked him what it was. He said, ‘Read it.’ It proved to be a letter from one James
Densmore (unknown to us all) setting forth at considerable length the facts in connection
with the invention of a machine to take the place of the pen, that is, to write by
manipulation of keys. He told who were the inventors, and said [57]that after many years of effort they had finally produced a working model, and they
wanted to find someone to undertake the manufacture of the machine. He wished to bring
the model to Ilion to see whether the Remingtons would care to take it up.
“I said to Mr. Remington, ‘Have you done anything about this?’ He said, ‘No, what
do you think we had better do?’ ‘Why,’ I said, ‘of course we want to see the machine;
it is a wonderful invention if it’s anything, and we should not neglect the opportunity
offered us to examine it.’ The result was that the model was brought to Ilion early
in 1873 by Mr. James Densmore and another man, whom Mr. Densmore introduced as Mr.
Yost. Densmore, as we soon saw, was not much of a talker, and he had brought Yost
to serve, as he himself expressed it, as ‘Aaron to his Moses.’ He did well, for Yost
was one of the most persuasive talkers I ever listened to, and his tongue never tired.
“Densmore and Yost opened up the model, and exhibited it to us in a room at the Osgood
House, then known as Small’s Hotel. There were present at the meeting, Mr. Philo Remington,
Mr. Jefferson M. Clough, Superintendent of the Remington Works, Mr. William K. Jenne,
Assistant Superintendent, Mr. Densmore, Mr. Yost and myself. We examined and discussed
the machine for perhaps an hour and a half or two hours and then adjourned for lunch
or dinner. As we left the room, Mr. Remington said to me, ‘What do you think of it?’
[58]I replied, ‘That machine is very crude, but there is an idea there that will revolutionize
business.’ Mr. Remington asked, ‘Do you think we ought to take it up?’ I said, ‘We
must on no account let it get away. It isn’t necessary to tell these people that we
are crazy over the invention, but I’m afraid I am pretty nearly so.’ ”
The party met again later in the day and a tentative agreement was entered into which
developed into the contract which opened a new chapter in the story of human progress.
The actual date of this contract was March 1, 1873. The original contract was for
manufacture only, but in due course of time the Remingtons acquired complete ownership.
Densmore was unsuccessful as selling agent and made little money in this role, but
when the ownership passed to the Remingtons, he accepted a royalty, by which he was
subsequently enriched. Sholes, either at this time or shortly after, is said to have
sold out his royalty rights to Densmore for $12,000, a goodly sum in those days, but
the only reward, so far as we know, that he ever received for his priceless invention
and the years of labor he had bestowed upon it.
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 [59]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
[60]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 [61]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.
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, [62]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.”
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