The 60-Words-a-Minute Man

Thanks to an item in "The Writer's Almanac," we learn that the typewriter was patented June 24, 1868, by Christopher Sholes of Milwaukee. There had been attempts at something like this since the early eighteenth century, but Sholes's typewriter was the first one to actually work. It was brought on the market in 1874 by Remington, and in 1875 Mark Twain wrote to his brother, "I am trying to get the hang of this newfangled writing machine."

Alas, no longer newfangled, the typewriter is now on its way to the Obsolescence Museum, to join hand-cranked telephones and nickel jukeboxes. Soon we may see people lugging their ancient Olivettis and Remingtons and Smith-Coronas to the Antiques Roadshow.

Many honors have been paid to the typewriter. Leroy Anderson even wrote a tune he called "The Typewriter Song," based on the cheery ping! of the bell at the end of a line. And more than one veteran reporter and PR man has insisted his typewriter be prominently displayed at his memorial service.

For this final note, we are again indebted to "The Writer's Almanac": Larry McMurtry, receiving a Golden Globe award for best screenplay, thanked his Hermes 3000--"a noble instrument of European genius."

Ping!