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Wednesday 11 March 2015

Fans With Typewriters - A Talk on the History of Sportswriting 1815-2015

My sports history presentation "Fans With Typewriters: A History of Sportswriting 1815-2015" took place today the University of the Third Age in Hughes, Canberra, and there was a packed auditorium. I took along 15 typewriters, as well as a spare Blickensderfer case, to help make my points, and came home with 16 portables (with the promise of the gift of another to come).
"We'd have had a Sholes-designed portable typewriter in the 1870s if it wasn't for Remington"
Demonstrating the weight difference in Blickensderfer cases.
A very special thanks to Peter Weil for providing me with so many great images to illustrate the talk, including pictorial evidence of early outdoor use of the Blickensderfer.
With course coordinator, political scientist and writer John Warhurst, left.
Turn of the century, above, 50 years later, below
For many years I searched in vain for the famous Corona 3-Dempsey-Firpo advert. Did it exist, or was it just a good story? In frustration, eventually I mocked up my own. Real or not, it had the desired effect.
"It would never have happened if I'd been using a Corona 3!"
15 American sportswriters
Jack London
Ernest Hemingway
Grantland Rice
Westbrook Pegler
Damon Runyon
Ring Lardner
Paul Gallico
Red Smith
Heywood Broun
Irwin Shaw
Norman Mailer
George Plimpton
Gay Talese
Tom Wolfe
Hunter S. Thompson
15 Australian sportswriters
William Josiah Sumner Hammersley (1826-1886)
Nathaniel Gould (1857-1919)
William Francis Corbett (1857-1923)
John Worrall (1861-1937)
Andrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson (1864-1941)
Reginald William Ernest Wilmot (1869-1949) 
Claude Gordon Corbett (1885-1944)
Alban George "Johnny" Moyes (1893-1963)
Edward Hugh Buggy (1896-1974)
Raymond John Robinson (1905-1982) 
John Henry Webb Fingleton (1908-1981)  
Percy James Beames (1911-2004)
Dallas George Stivens (1911-1997)
Henry Alfred Gordon (1925-2015
Peter Muir McFarline (1944-2002)
15 sportswriters from other countries
Sir John Frederick Neville Cardus (1888-1975) Britain
Cyril Lionel Robert James (1901-1989) Trinidad
Raymond Charles Robertson-Glasgow (1901-1965) Britain
Denzil Stanley Batchelor (1906-1969) Britain
Alexander Gaskell Pickard (1913-2006) New Zealand
Sir Terence Power McLean (1913- 2004) New Zealand 
Leslie Thomas John Arlott (1914-1991) Britain
Peter Wilson (-1983) Britian 
Alan John Ross (1922 2001) Britian
Denis Lalanne (1926-) France
Ian Wooldridge (1932-2007) Britain
Hugh McIlvanney (1934-) Britain 
Neil Allen, Britain
Neil Wilson, Britain
Ramachandra Guha (1958-) India

1 comment:

Typewriter Poetry said...

I've never even thought of sports writers using typewriters of events--but of course! Sounds like the presentation was wonderful. And what a collection!