On This Day in Typewriter History (XXXVIII)

JUNE 27

Helen Keller was born on this day in 1880, in Tuscumbia, Alabama.

Helen Adams Keller was an author, political activist and lecturer.

She was the first deaf-blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree.

Keller died at Arcan Ridge, Easton, Connecticut, on June 1, 1968, less four week before her 88th birthday.

This is Helen Keller's Corona portable:

There seems to be a consensus of opinion that the American writer, poet and art critic Frank O’Hara was born on this day in 1926, in Baltimore.

Francis Russell O'Hara was a member of the New York School of poetry. He died at Fire Island, New York, on July 25, 1966, aged 40.

On this day in 1916, Underwood manager and WIDELY recognised typewriter expert J. Frank Allard was issued with a US patent for an idea to adapt the Underwood typewriter to type vertically.

In his specifications, Allard said, “This invention relates to means for typewriting in such foreign languages as employ vertical lines of writing instead of the ordinary horizontally extending lines of the English language.

“One of the main objects of the invention is to produce a machine for writing Chinese by means of an alphabet consisting of 40 or more characters, which has recently been devised for this purpose by certain authorities. The letters or characters forming this alphabet are not herein illustrated, because the machine is also adapted for writing other languages than Chinese. The machine is illustrated as adapted for writing a single case, for alphabets not provided with both capitals and small letters; no case shifting mechanism being shown.

“It is customary in writing ordinary Chinese characters to place them one below another, beginning at the top of the page, so that the line of writing reads down the page; and this plan will be continued in connection with the new Chinese alphabet referred to.

“This invention provides for the worksheet to be moved vertically at the operation of the typekeys, so that the alphabet characters will be written on the worksheet one below another, the top of each letter or alphabet character being adjacent to the bottom of the next letter or alphabet character,in contradistinction to the usual method of writing letters side by side as in English. Provision is also made for moving the worksheet laterally for making spaces between the vertical lines of writing.
“According to the Chinese custom, the writing begins at the right-hand margin of the worksheet and proceeds line-by-line toward the left-hand margin.”

In 1913, Allard was called to give expert evidence in two sensation New York court cases. In November, newspaper editor John A. Hennessy (above) was the special investigator for Governor William Sulzer in a Tammany Hall corruption trial.

In March 1913, “Crazy Henry” (Henry J.) Klotz, the so-called Bronx bomb-maker, was on trial.