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VIDEORequiem For The Typewriter
By
Scott Reeves Jul 08, 2008 10:57 am
A history of those marvelous machines.
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For the first time, many women worked outside the home and earned good money. Some would later cut their hair and (gasp) live independently.
This changed everything. In 1891, a story headlined “Women In Trousers” appeared in the Lincoln (Nebraska) Daily Call:
“At a recent meeting of the Woman’s National Council at Indianapolis it was resolved that the women in business, the typewriters, should have a change in dress and the discussion showed that the bloomer costume was to be outdone if the expressed sentiment of those present counted for anything.”
The new device had enriched the language: “Type-Writer” was the machine and “typewriter” was the woman who operated it.
The impending change of dress was serious business, and the New York Tribune lamented, “The gentle bewitching swish of the typewriters’ skirts is falling upon the ears of lower New York for the last times; in a few months there will be only silent, business-like trousers.”
Fashion aside, the new machine was the end for Bartleby the scrivener - the man in Herman Melville’s short story who laboriously copied Wall Street documents by hand. Bartleby drove his boss nuts by repeatedly saying he would “prefer not to.” Think of it as an early fable of corporate discontent: Bartleby was an educated man who did tedious, unending work while sitting alone at his high writing table.
Some historians note that the typewriter made production of documents faster, opened up communication and led to the development of management systems still in use today.
Women quickly changed the atmosphere of the workplace, a trend that continues. Working conditions in an office beat the factory - and the pay was better. Along the way, Remington had to develop the means to mass-produce and assemble numerous small parts into typewriters, laying the groundwork for Ford’s (F) auto assembly line.
Like many technologies -- the aesthetically stunning and mechanically advanced Hudson steam locomotives of the New York Central Railroad come to mind -- the manual typewriter reached its apogee just before extinction by a better technology.
Electric typewriters were introduced in the 1920s, but they were little more than souped-up manuals. International Business Machines (IBM) introduced the revolutionary Selectric typewriter in 1961 and ten years later produced the best in show, the Selectric II. Type bars and carriages moving ahead at one letter a time were replaced by a printing element - a sphere about the size of a golf ball that contained all letters, symbols, numerals and punctuation marks. It zipped across the page on a small metal rod and, unlike traditional typewriters, never jammed. This was a huge advance over standard electric typewriters and greatly increased production. Documents looked better because the carbon ribbon always made a uniform impression.
Of course, this nifty technology was wasted on reporters who used judo chops to strike the keys on manual Remington, Underwood, Royal or Olympia typewriters. The use of “half takes” -- newsprint cut to half the length of a standard 8 1/2 by 11-inch sheet of paper -- kicked the brain into gear as the semi-conscious reporter cranked sheet after sheet into his beloved typewriter, knocking out one (brilliant) paragraph per page. Any competent newshound could bang out 15 column inches (about 600 words) on deadline while the editor blew foul smoke on his artfully loosened tie and bellowed, “What’s your lead?” (That’s the clever or newsy first paragraph of the story intended to entice the reader into trading a few minutes of his precious time for the reporter’s masterwork of the day.) This cosmic question was quickly followed with “Gimme that first take right now, you intellectually flatulent weasel!”
The sound of a newsroom filled with clattering typewriters on deadline would have made Rosie the Riveter feel right at home and generated real energy among those pounding away. No one thought much about use of the subjunctive. Quips, puns and insults flew faster than mixed metaphors.
I now sit in an air conditioned office with carpet on the floor, staring into a flat-panel computer screen. Harsh fluorescent lights singe my synapses. Writing on a computer doesn’t stir rhythm or pace; it’s too damn quiet. I grin at my screen like an aspiring idiot. It’s like being back in graduate school, writing the definitive critique of Chaucer’s toenails.
I miss my typewriter.
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