On This Day in Typewriter History (XV)

JUNE 4

It was on this day in 2007 that acclaimed Australian writer and poet David Malouf launched his book Typewriter Music, which naturally contains the poem Typewriter Music:

This highly recommended book is still readily available on eBay.
David George Joseph Malouf was born in Brisbane on March 20, 1934. Typewriter Music, Malouf's first collection of poems in 26 years, was launched by University of Queensland Vice-Chancellor Professor John Hay at the university’s art museum. (This is not the same John Hay who is co-author, with Colin and Mary Jones, of the Australian book Demise of the Typewriter.) To mark the occasion of the launching of Typewriter Music, the head of the university’s school of music, Professor Philip Bracanin, composed a short piece, also entitled Typewriter Music, and it was performed on the night by the Sanctuary String Quartet. Among his many works, Malouf has written libretti for three operas, including Voss, an adaptation of the Patrick White novel.

Malouf still uses an Erika manual portable typewriter. He writes his drafts in pen and then types them.

It was on this day in 1940 that then British Prime Minister Winston Churchill delivered his famous “We Shall Fight on the Beaches” speech to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.

On this day in 1907, typewriter inventor, engineer and patent practice councillor-at-law Burnham Coos Stickney, of Elizabeth, New Jersey, was granted a patent for an improved tabulation mechanism for the Underwood Typewriter Company.

Stickney wrote in his description, “Usually in machines of this character the denomination stops are normally in ineffective positions, and any stop may be projected by its key to effective position. In the construction herein described, the denomination stops are mounted to be normally in effective position, and key-operated devices are provided for moving one or more stops together out of effective position, whereby the first stop not so moved is enabled to co-act with the column stop for arresting the carriage at the desired point.”  Get it? (Images: above, of the Underwood 5, from Paul Robert's The Virtual Typewriter Museum; below, of the Underwood 3, from Guy Pérard's typewriter.be)

Burnham C.Stickney's signature is on many typewriter patents, either as inventor or attorney.
He was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on April 9, 1864, the son of a cabinet-maker, John H.Stickney. His great-grandfather was a second lieutenant in the Massachusetts regiment of Lieutenant-Colonel Nathaniel Wade during the War of Independence. Wade was the man appointed by George Washington to replace Benedict Arnold after Arnold defected to the British side.

On This Day in Typewriter History (XIV)

JUNE 3

Saluting
Darien Wadsworth Dodson (1860-1940):

 The world's most persistently unsuccessful typewriter inventor - ever.

Darien Wadsworth Dodson was born at Town Line, Pennsylvania, on November 14, 1860, the son of Osborne Samuel Dodson. Darien Dodson, an engineer by trade, was first granted a patent for his multiple typewheel typewriter on this day in 1884, when he was just 23 (he had applied for it exactly 13 months earlier).

Typewriter historian Michael H. Adler was aware of Dodson’s patent when he wrote his two definitive books, The Writing Machine: A History of the Typewriter (1973) and Antique Typewriters: From Creed to QWERTY (1997), but he dismissed Dodson in a few words; in his first book, Adler said the Dodson typewriter was “impractical”. Nonetheless, Adler appears to be the only typewriter historian to have taken any notice of Dodson. I certainly can find no references to Dodson’s typewriters in any other works.
Dodson was not discouraged by his inability to get his first typewriter design into production. He simply refused to give up on it. From 1880 (when he was still 19) until 1889, Dodson and a friend, Francis H.Richards, of Springfield, Massachusetts, worked together on gearing, mechanical movement, and carriage driving and key mechanism designs to apply to the Dodson typewriter to make it more workable.
After 1889, Dodson continued to press on alone, increasingly concentrating his efforts on the successful application of multiple typewheels in a typewriter – he started out with two and three, but some of his designs had as many as four.

Finally, in 1890, Dodson was able to come up with an improved typewriter design, one of which Adler was unaware. This machine had four typewheels with “independent orbital and axial rotary movement”. It also had a four-bank, semi-circular keyboard and a high, solid front which almost gave it the appearance of a German Kanzler. For all that, this Dodson typewriter does not appear to have gone into production, either.
Perhaps abandoning his typewriter-inventing dreams, there was a 19-year break in Dodson’s applications for patents. In the meantime, he had moved to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and then on to Hartford, Connecticut.

In 1909 Dodson was contracted by the American Type-Bar Machine Company and assigned to this company various of his inventions, for dies, for character bars, and for a machine to form characters.
The New York City-based American Type-Bar Machine Company had a charter issued and was incorporated in 1894. Its president was Chauncey Marshall and its objectives were “acquiring and developing certain inventions and improvements pertaining to the art of printing, manufacturing, selling, type-bar machines".
Dodson was still being granted patents in 1923, aged 63, when he was living in Dorranceton, Pennsylvania, and had invented “hydraulic rams”. He died in 1940, aged 79.

Typewriter-loving Larry Jeff McMurtry (born in Archer City, Texas, on this day in 1936; he turns 75 today) was photographed (above) on October 1, 1978, by Diana Walker for Time-Life, at McMurtry's suburban Washington home. McMurtry is a novelist, essayist, bookseller and screenwriter whose work is predominantly set in either the old West or in contemporary Texas.

He is known for his 1975 novel Terms of Endearment, his 1985 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Lonesome Dove, a historical saga that follows former Texas Rangers as they drive their cattle from the Rio Grande to a new home in the frontier of Montana, and for co-writing the adapted screenplay (from a short New Yorker story by Annie Proulx) for Brokeback Mountain. Lonesome Dove was adapted into a television mini-series and Terms of Endearment was adapted into an Academy Award-winning movie. McMurtry also wrote the brilliant Hud and The Last Picture Show.

When, on January 16, 2006, McMurtry won a Golden Globe (above) for his work on Brokeback Mountain, in his acceptance speech he thanked not his family or friends or colleagues, but his typewriter. He said, “My typewriter is a Hermes 3000, surely one of the noblest instruments of European genius. And, ladies and gentlemen, can you believe it? It's kept me for 30 years out of the dry embrace of the computer.”

There was an commercial break after McMurtry’s speech, during which a Hermes 3000 for sale on eBay in the US went from $20 at 6.32pm to $330 in eight minutes - at one point from $99 to $200 in one bid.
Later McMurtry, talking about his Hermes, said, “I tried to take my typewriter through airport security, and they took it apart," he said. "They've forgotten what they are. They thought it was a bomb." To which his fellow Golden Globe winner Diana Ossana said, "Oh, they didn't think it was a bomb. They just didn't know what it was."

McMurtry said he had seven Hermes 3000s, including one in Virginia, another in California, another he carried with him on his coast-to-coast drives, and one at the McMurtry ranch near Archer City.

Another famous American writer born (in Newark) on this day in, 1926 was poet Irwin Allen Ginsberg. He died, aged 70, in New York City on April 5, 1997. Ginsberg was a leading figure of the Beat Generation and his epic poem Howl celebrated his fellow "angel-headed hipsters" and excoriated what he saw as the destructive forces of capitalism and conformity in the United States.
The self-shot photo above is of Ginsberg typing in his kitchen in San Francisco in 1955.

These photos are of Ginsberg typing on a Smith-Corona portable in his apartment at 170 East 2nd Street, New York, on January 9, 1960.

Britain’s King George V was born at Marlborough House, London, on this day in 1865. He died in 1936. He is one of the few monarchs to give royal approval to a typewriter. He declared the Imperial Typewriter Company of Leicester, England, to be his “typewriter manufacturer by appointment”. Early models of the Imperial Good Companion portable carried his colourful and ornate royal seal on the front left of the ribbon cover (this IGC Model 1 from my own collection):

This is the seal on a much later model, after George V had died in 1952:

More Ginsberg images:

Don't Cry For Me, Typewriter Vandals: One That Got Away!

PART I

(The Wordy Prelude to the Meaty Bit)

close to being keytop vandal fodder!

PART II

(The Meaty Bit)

Where all this is leading is here …

For some time I have been a member of the Antique Typewriter Collectors group on Facebook. Not sure how or when I joined, and was never quite sure what it was all about (which is quite un-typospherian). One thing I did notice, however – and I very seldom look at Facebook, just occasionally to see how Will Davis and Alan Seaver are getting on (plus a few other friends) – is that this group was pretty quiet.

Imagine my surprise, then, when yesterday morning I checked my emails to find the first seven of 15 messages with photographs of young women with typewriters (and some handsome, lonesome typewriters, too) from one Silvano Donadoni. Then I noticed a message from Robert Berkman, saying “Antique Typewriter Collectors has been upgraded to the new groups format, which makes it easier for members to connect and share.”
Well, that certainly started to liven things up a bit. But very soon after, what really set the cat among the pigeons was this very brave comment from a member of an Antique Typewriter Collectors group(to be on the safe side, no names, no pack drill; I am going to use numbers here, so as to protect the innocent, namely my good self)
Member 1 (attached photo below): if you find a vintage typewriter but it's in horrid condition, you can always pull the keys off and make jewelry

Whoa! In pretty short time the exchange went like this:
Member 2: key cutters are evil, nothing personal, but it is just wrong
Member 3: Evil evil people they are
Member 4: mmmmnnnnyeah...sorry.
Member 1(coming to their own defence): I'm not that bad. Some machines I come across are WAY beyond repair, and I feel sorry for them being tossed to the curb, so I salvage what keys I can. I won't dare take the keys off of a decent machine, which is why my typewriter collection keeps growing.
Member 5: If you find a vintage typewriter that's in horrid condition, please just send it to me instead.
Member 2 (again): well as someone with I suppose an above average mechanical skill with access to lots of tools and machines, I suppose not everyone can save every writer, still... I bet most poeple here would gladly find a way to fix one that was considered beyond hope by a key cutter. you can get fake keys on ebay for a few bucks, why ruin something irreplaceable ?
Member 4: It's just a place we can't go.
Member 3: You can repair anything on a Typer really....
Member 1: [O]k, from now on, I will post photos of any nasty machines that I come across (and don't want to keep for myself). Maybe someone here will want to tackle intense refurbishment.
Member 3: I will!
Member 5: Yeah! This new challenge/contest excites me
Member 6: (senior voice coming in at this stage?): take it from someone who has repaired typewriters for the last 35 years........YES some machines are beyond repiar...!!!!! I have a few hundred if you want to see them.... but with that said I will say that key cutters are much to quick to... decide when a machine is ready for the "knife". I have revived a number of machines that were deemed "past the point of no return" by key cutters who were looking for any reason they could find to declare the typewriter "too far gone". I'm sure [Member 1] is not one of these. She has some cool machines in her collection so cut her some slack and save your ire for the real offenders!!!!
Member 3: I swear this typewriter collectors group has never seen this much action for one post
Member 6: … Yeah, this thing was dead for a while. glad to see some action!!!!
Member 3: Every once in a while someone would post a picture or two...
Member 7 (someone we all know - in the typewriter collecting sense - and admire): The only problem with lopping off keys from truly unsalvageable typers is that it feeds the market. Less ethical keychoppers then seek to meet the demand by chopping perfectly good machines. This is why in my mind it is *never* okay to cut keys for jewelry. As well-intentioned and reasonable as it may be in some cases, it simply perpetuates the problem.
Member 8: Nice looking jewelry.
Member 1: thanks [Member 6] ...you are right--people that don't appreciate antiques are too quick to chop up for parts...I have saved some machines from those folks.
Member 9 (another one of our very dear, sensible friends): One of the top tips for stimulating your community is to be irreverent and contentious. Could be you've done the cause a power of good just by breaking the taboo and using the 'C' word.
Member 9 (again): ‎...though you could draw a parallel with elephant ivory...?

And here I was worried I'd be drummed out of the typewriter collecting regiment for buying a USB typewriter for my birthday!
I was once on a couple of online typewriter forums, but found myself completely overwhelmed by the welter of messages I received each day (some might say the same thing about my blog!). Now that the dynamics of this Facebook group have suddenly changed, I'll have to wait and see. It may turn out to be very interesting ...

Just after I returned from Melbourne in February, I received a (typewritten!) letter from a local woman asking, basically, whether I’d be prepared to send her typewriters I had no further use for, so she could turn them into jewellery.
My mind turned to the little Royal portable that invited Melbournians, “I am typewriter … so type with me!” And they did, in their droves. And loved it. No further use for it? Perish the thought!

On This Day in Typewriter History (XIII)

JUNE 2

(Three weeks to go to

 “Typewriter Day”)

On this day in 1886, US President Grover Cleveland become the first and only President to be married in the White House. He married Frances Clara Folsom Cleveland Preston, who was just six weeks short of her 22nd birthday at the time.

She remains the youngest First Lady to this day. Cleveland was 49.

Before Cleveland’s second term in office, in 1893, he was having difficulty constructing his platform and getting along with his own party, and a cartoon in Judge magazine drawn by Bernard Gillam showed a profusely sweating Cleveland trying to manipulate the Democrats "like a typewriter".
The cartoon was titled “The Administration Typewriter” and showed the party as a typewriter, with the faces of prominent Democrats on the keys. The caption reads, “Blame the thing -I can't make it work!” Here is a coloured print of the cartoon (so good it's with repeating):

It was on this day in 1925 that New York Yankees manager Miller “Mighty Mite” Huggins changed his lineup to replace Wally Pipp at first base with Henry Louis Gehrig - Lou Gehrig, like Miss Folsom on her wedding day, just two weeks shy of being 22-years-old. This was the start of a streak of 2130 consecutive games played by Gehrig, a record not beaten until 1995 (by Carl Ripken Jnr). Gehrig would be nicknamed “The Iron Horse” and “Iron Man” for his durability.

Exactly 16 years later, on this day in 1941, Gehrig died in Riverdale, New York City, from Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a form of motor neuron disease now more commonly called Lou Gehrig’s Disease. He was a fortnight short of his 38th birthday.
Gehrig’s wife Eleanor Gehrig, the daughter of Chicago Parks commissioner Frank Twitchell, was with Gehrig at the end (they had married in 1933). This photograph of Eleanor typing as Lou dictates from his notes was taken on November 12, 1939, at Larchmont, New York.

The caption for the photo said Gehrig was preparing for his new job as a member of the three-man New York Municipal Parole Commission. He was taking the job seriously - Eleanor is here typing from notes taken from 30 volumes and leaflets on criminology and parole. New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, the caption said, was “counting on [Gehrig’s] influence with wayward youth on setting them along the straight and narrow." LaGuardia, who called Gehrig “the greatest prototype of good sportsmanship and citizenship”, had offered Gehrig a 10-year term as a commissioner. The Parole Commission commended Gehrig for his “firm belief in parole, properly administered”, and added that Gehrig “indicated he accepted the parole post because it represented an opportunity for public service. He had rejected other job offers – including lucrative speaking and guest appearance opportunities – worth far more financially than the $5700 a year commissionership.” Gehrig visited New York City's correctional facilities, but insisted that the visits not be covered by news media. Gehrig was often helped by Eleanor, who would guide his hand when he had to sign official documents. About a month before his death, when Gehrig reached the point where his deteriorating physical condition made it impossible for him to continue in the job, he quietly resigned.

Eleanor Gehrig dedicated the rest of her life to supporting ALS research. She died on March 6, March, 1984, on her 80th birthday.

Born (at Oswestry, Shropshire) on this day in 1913 was English novelist Barbara Mary Crampton Pym. Barbara Pym (seen above with her Royalite portable typewriter) died of breast cancer in 1980, aged 66.

On this day exactly 120 years ago (1891), the great typewriter inventor Thomas Hall, at the time living in Lyndhurst, New Jersey, was granted a patent for the last of his wonderful typewriters (assigned to his own New Jersey company). This was for the lesser-known of his machines, called the Century. (I can't seem to find any images of it, apart from this illustration from G.C.Mares's 1909 The History of the Typewriter: Successor to the Pen, reproduced in Paul Lippman's 1992 American Typewriters).

Hall had started inventing typewriters even before Christopher Latham Sholes. His first patent, for a “typographic machine”, was granted on June 18, 1867, when he was also living in Bergen. At that same time, he also invented improvements for the Buell sewing machine (1866, see photo below) for George Buell, connecting rods for machinery (1867) and lamp burners (1866).

Hall in later life moved to Brooklyn, and died there on November 18, 1911, aged 78 (this is according to The New York Times death notices at the time; A Condensed History of the Writing Machine (1923) says he died on November 19, aged 77). This is what Mares wrote about the Century:

Hall’s first manufactured typewriter was the Hall, regarded as one of the first index typewriters and also as one of the best. There are various versions of this design, referred to by collectors as the New York, Salem and Boston models (as well as a portable). The image below is from Anthony Casillo's Typewriter Memory Lane [you may note the advertisement at the bottom is signed by William Dean Howells]:

The Salem Hall index was one of the first typewriters to be imported into Australia. One held by the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney has the serial number 8354, indicating it was made about 1887. This has a label inside its case stating, “Sole Agents Australasia, Mackrell Mills & Co, Sydney and Melbourne”. William Mackrell Mills was a wealthy Sydney merchant who lived at “Harlands”, No 78 Crinan Street, Hurlstone Park. The Hall's weight and size may well have been an important factor in making it viable to be imported into Australia in the late 1880s, early 1890s.

On This Day in Typewriter History (XII)

JUNE 1

(Officially the first day of winter in Australia)

Finally we get the chance to salute a famous Australian writer – indeed, even one with a New Zealand heritage. On this day in 1937, Colleen McCullough-Robinson was born in Wellington  - but Wellington, New South Wales, not Wellington, the capital of New Zealand. She turns 74 today. Her mother was a New Zealander, of part-Maori descent. McCullough spent 10 years from April 1967 researching and teaching in the Department of Neurology at the Yale Medical School in New Haven, Connecticut. It was while at Yale that her first two books were written. She now lives on Norfolk Island in the Pacific.

Her most famous work was The Thorn Birds (1977), which was made into a 1983 TV mini-series starring Richard Chamberlain. It became the United States' second-highest-rated mini-series of all time behind Roots; both series were produced by David L. Wolper.
Marilyn Monroe was born on this day in 1926, in Los Angeles. She died in Brentwood, LA, on August 5, 1962, aged just 36.

Andy Samuel Griffith was also born on this day in 1926. He turns 85 today. Griffith, who was born in Mt Airy, North Carolina, is perhaps best remembered for TV series The Andy Griffith Show and Matlock, but he was also a Grammy Award-winning Southern-gospel singer, and a writer.

In The Andy Griffith Show, he played Andy Taylor, sheriff and newspaper editor in Mayberry, North Carolina, and father to a then six-year-old Ron Howard, playing Opie.

On this day in 1909, inventor Harry Bates, of Albany, New York, was reissued a patent for a time-controlled, coin-operated locking device for typewriters. The patent for this unusual idea, originally granted in 1908, was re-issued so that it could be assigned to the Underwood Typewriter Company. Bates was the advertising manager at Underwood and invented several typewriter devices, which he assigned to his employers.

I have never previously heard of such of a thing, but it must have been at least a short-lived success. In the September 1912 edition of Popular Mechanics Magazine, a lead feature article on Bates said “typewriter pay stations” had been “introduced throughout the country”.
(Again, Burnham Coos Stickney is the attorney on this patent.)