Miss Invention = ?
Which typewriter will have the honor of being the first to be invented?
That depends on your definition.
Theoretical concept
In 1714, the British engineer Henry Mill obtains a patent for a machine or
method to put letters on paper that are equal to the quality of printing.
Nothing suggests that he will ever build a machine.
First real machine
Who is the first real inventor of a truly existing typewriter? We will
never know. Is it the Viennese count Reipperg (1760), the Swiss Jacquet (1780),
the Frenchman Pingeron (1784), or the Italian Pietro Conti with his 'Tachigrafo'
(1823)?
Fact is, however, that in 1808, Pellegrino Turri supplied a typewriter to a
blind countess whose letters have been preserved!
 First
American
The first American inventor of typewriters is William
Austin Burt, who, in 1829, applies for a patent on his 'Typographer'. This
writes on a long strip of paper
(as a Dymo now).
There is a kind of clock at the front, which indicates when you have more or
less filled a page. Yet Burt does not succeed in getting any manufacturers
enthusiastic about his invention. He puts it away and focuses his attention on
other inventions.
Throng of inventors
Yet Burt's invention wakes up numerous inventors. Samual Morse goes a step
further in 1840 with the invention of the electric telegraph. This means that
telegraphists can transmit and understand the code quicker that they can write
it down! A throng of European and American inventors show their prototypes. For
example, the Italian Giuseppe Ravizza who makes no less than sixteen models of
his 'Cembalo Scrivano' of which not even one goes into production.
Or the Frenchman Xavier Progin with his 'Plume Typographique' from 1833,
which has type bars that strike the top of the paper so you can see what is
being typed. An invention that only surfaces again in 1893! Or Gustave Bidet who
tries out a type wheel in 1837, as Blick does,
half a century later.
Slower than a pen
The American John Jones invents a slow but good typewriter in 1852, which he
-not very originally- christens the 'mechanical typographer'. He produces 130 of
them. Regrettably almost all go up in flames when his workshop burns down.
In the meantime, numerous inventors go on dauntlessly tinkering
on both sides of the ocean. Yet all machines have the same weaknesses:
- They are slower than a pen.
- They are not manufactured industrially.
Sholes changes
all that in America and Hansen
in Europe.
Ref.
'The Typewriter Legend' by Panasonic - p. 12-14 'The Invention of
the Typewriter'
| 
