A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical device with keys that, when pressed, cause characters to be printed on a medium, usually paper. Typically one character is printed per keypress, and the machine prints the characters by making ink impressions of type elements similar to the sorts used in movable type letterpress printing. From their invention in 1868 through much of the 20th century, typewriters were indispensable tools for recording the written word. Widely used by professional writers and in offices for decades, by the end of the 1980s, word processors and personal computers largely displaced typewriters in the settings where they previously had been ubiquitous in the western world.Here are some terms that you may find handy in describing the basic parts of your typewriter. Pictured (in a pretty distorted way, I know!) is a conventional typebar typewriter -- plus one part from a less conventional typewriter.

Parts of Typewriter

1. Decal2. Carriage return lever3. Platen Knob4. Carriage release lever5. Feed roller6. Key top7. Ribbon spool8. Type bars9. Paper fingers10. Paper table11. Shift key12. Space bar13. Type lever

The concept of a typewriter dates back at least to 1714, when Englishman Henry Mill filed a vaguely-worded patent for "an artificial machine or method for the impressing or transcribing of letters singly or progressively one after another." But the first typewriter proven to have worked was built by the Italian Pellegrino Turri in 1808 for his blind friend Countess Carolina Fantoni da Fivizzono (as established by Michael Adler in his excellent 1973 book The Writing Machine); unfortunately, we do not know what the machine looked like, but we do have specimens of letters written by the Countess on it. Numerous inventors in Europe and the U.S. worked on typewriters in the 19th century, but successful commercial production began only with the "writing ball" of Danish pastor Malling Hansen (1870). This well-engineered device looked rather like a pincushion. Nietzsche's mother and sister once gave him one for Christmas. He hated it.

Much more influential, in the long run, was the Sholes & Glidden Type Writer, which began production in late 1873 and appeared on the American market in 1874.

Christopher L. Sholes, a Milwaukee newspaperman, poet, and part-time inventor, was the main creator of this machine. The Sholes & Glidden typed only in capital letters, and it introduced the QWERTY keyboard, which is very much with us today. The keyboard was probably designed to separate frequently-used pairs of typebars so that the typebars would not clash and get stuck at the printing point. The S&G was a decorative machine, boasting painted flowers and decals. It looked rather like a sewing machine, as it was manufactured by the sewing machine department of the Remington arms company. For an in-depth look at this historic device, visit Darryl Rehr's Web site "The First Typewriter." The Sholes & Glidden had limited success, but its successor, the Remington, soon became a dominant presence in the industry.

The Sholes & Glidden, like many early typewriters, is an understroke or "blind" writer: the typebars are arranged in a circular basket under the platen (the printing surface) and type on the bottom of the platen. This means that the typist (confusingly called a "typewriter" herself in the early days) has to lift up the carriage to see her work. Another example of an understroke typebar machine is the Caligraph of 1880, the second typewriter to appear on the American market.

This Caligraph has a "full" keyboard -- separate keys for lower- and upper-case letters. Click here to read more about the Caligraph. The Smith Premier (1890) is another example of a full-keyboard understroke typewriter which was very popular in its day. Click here to read more and see the machine. The QWERTY keyboard came to be called the "Universal" keyboard, as the alternative keyboards fought a losing battle against the QWERTY momentum. (For more on QWERTY and to learn why "QWERTY is cool," visit Darryl Rehr's site The QWERTY Connection.) But not all early typewriters used the QWERTY system, and many did not even type with typebars. Case in point: the ingenious Hammond, introduced in 1884. The Hammond came on the scene with its own keyboard, the two-row, curved "Ideal" keyboard -- although Universal Hammonds were also soon made available. The Hammond prints from a type shuttle -- a C-shaped piece of vulcanized rubber. The shuttle can easily be exchanged when you want to use a different typeface. There is no cylindrical platen as on typebar typewriters; the paper is hit against the shuttle by a hammer.

The Hammond gained a solid base of loyal customers. These well-engineered machines lasted, with a name change to Varityper and electrification, right up to the beginning of the word-processor era. Other machines typing from a single type element rather than typebars included the gorgeous Crandall (1881) ...

... and the practical Blickensderfer.

The effort to create a visible rather than "blind" machine led to many ingenious ways of getting the typebars to the platen. Examples of early visible writers include the Williams and the Oliver. The Daugherty Visible of 1891 was the first frontstroke typewriter to go into production: the typebars rest below the platen and hit the front of it. With the Underwood of 1895, this style of typewriter began to gain ascendancy. By the 1920s, virtually all typewriters were "look-alikes": frontstroke, QWERTY, typebar machines printing through a ribbon, using one shift key and four banks of keys. The most popular model of early Underwoods, the #5, is still to be found everywhere.

Let's return for a moment to the 19th century. The standard price for a typewriter was $100 -- comparable to the price of a good personal computer today. There were many efforts to produce cheaper typewriters. Most of these were index machines: the typist first points at a letter on some sort of index, then performs another motion to print the letter. Obviously, these were not heavy-duty office machines; they were meant for people of limited means who needed to do some occasional typing. An example is the "American" index typewriter, which sold for $5. Index typewriters survived into the 20th century as children's toys; one commonly found example is the "Dial" typewriter made by Marx Toys in the 1920s and 30s. Much more could be said about the hundreds of makes of early typewriters -- but I'll restrain myself. To get some different perspectives, try looking through my collection list or my wish list. To bone up on the topic yourself, check out the typewriter-collecting resources.

Every collector has his or her personal wish list. Here's mine. Thanks to their rarity and beauty, these machines are worth an order of magnitude more than your run-of-the-mill Underwood. --Richard Polt 10. Sphinx (1913). The production of this sleek Swiss typewriter was interrupted by the First World War. Most collectors have never heard of it, but something about it grabs me. It features a bulbous body, vertically mounted ribbon spools, and a luscious decal of two Sphinxes. (Enhanced illustration from Ernst Martin's Die Schreibmaschine.) And check out this ribbon tin design by Darryl Rehr, inspired by the Sphinx typewriter!

9. Edison-Mimeograph Typewriter (1895). Fortunately, Thomas A. Edison's reputation is unblemished by this cumbersome index typewriter. It was not his invention, but a was marketed by A.B. Dick as a companion to the mimeograph, which Edison did invent. This machine, though attractive, was slow and was no better at making mimeographic stencils than any other typewriter. It was soon forced off the market.

8. Saturn (1897). A turn-of-the-century Swiss oddity: you first select a row of printed letters on the index, then type on one of the nine keys of the keyboard. Inefficient? You bet! (Photo from ETCetera #31, June 1995.)

7. Fitch (1891). This down-stroke-from-the-back typewriter has a distinctive look and a unique keyboard arrangement. The papers coils up in front and behind the platen. I finally got a Fitch in 2007.

6. Maskelyne (1893). The substantial and elegant Maskelyne, a British writing machine, is inked from a pad, prints 96 characters, and uses proportional spacing -- a feature of printed books and modern computer fonts. Good show! In the Maskelyne's "grasshopper" mechanism, also used by the Williams, typebars "hop" up from the ink pad and onto the platen.

5. Sholes & Glidden (1873). The granddaddy of all American manufactured writing machines, this "Type-Writer" was invented primarily by Christopher L. Sholes of Milwaukee. Sholes & Gliddens have many minor variants; often they are decorated with decals and painted flowers. To read more about the S&G, see A Brief History of Typewriters and visit Darryl Rehr's Web site devoted to "The First Typewriter."

4. Peirce Accounting Typewriter (1912). One of several turn-of-the-century typewriters designed to type in bound accounting books, the stately Peirce bears an eerie resemblance to a computer terminal -- and to a stool. Unsolved mystery: is this machine any relation to American pragmatist philosopher Charles S. Peirce?

3. Hammond 1 (1881). The pioneer of the long-lived Hammond line is encased in wood and has a curved keyboard of a unique design known as the "Ideal" (this keyboard was also available on later models). Speaking of Peirce, he used one of these! To read more about Hammonds, visit this page. I acquired a Hammond 1 in 2003. Click here to see my restoration work on it.

2. Blickensderfer Electric (1st model 1902, 2nd 1913?). The Blick Electric was 60 years ahead of its time. Like most manual Blicks, it printed from an interchangeable typewheel and an ink roller -- and it was fully electrified. This at a time when electricity was a luxury used mostly for nighttime illumination. IBM Selectric, eat your heart out!

1. Crandall (1881). Invented by one of the pioneers of typewriter production, Lucien S. Crandall, this type-cylinder machine appeared in several models. The New Model, shown below, is inlaid with mother-of-pearl and has to be one of the most beautiful writing machines ever built. I found a Crandall in 2003. (See a larger picture here.)

Hand PlacementHome keys for the Left Hand are A, S, D, & F.Home keys for the Right Hand are J, K, L, & ; (semi-colon).On the graphic above, the color dots on the keys match the fingers used to press them.PracticeHome keys for the left handA S D FHome keys for the right handJ K L ;Keys for the left index finger5 6 R T F G V BKeys for the right index finger7 8 Y U H J N MKeys for the left middle finger4 E D CKeys for the right middle fingerI K ,Keys for the left ring fingerKeys for the left little/pinkie finger2 3 W S X` 1 Q A ZKeys for the right ring fingerKeys for the right little/pinkie finger9 O L .0 - = P [ ] \ ; /