You probably think there is one name attached to the birth of the typewriter. Most people do. They think of Christopher Latham Sholes and his QWERTY keyboard, or maybe they’ve heard of Remington. But honestly? The question of who first invented typewriter technology is a total rabbit hole that spans over 150 years and includes a gallery of geniuses, failed businessmen, and even a blind Italian countess.
It wasn’t a single "eureka" moment. Instead, it was a slow, clunky evolution. Imagine a world where every single document had to be handwritten. If you had terrible penmanship, you were basically invisible in the professional world. That's why people were obsessed with making a "writing machine" for centuries before it actually worked.
The 1714 Ghost: Henry Mill’s "Missing" Machine
If we are being technical about patents, the story starts way back in 1714. An English engineer named Henry Mill received a patent from Queen Anne. He claimed he had an idea for an "artificial machine or method for the impressing or transcribing of letters, singly or progressively one after another, as in writing."
Sounds like a typewriter, right?
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The problem is, nobody knows what it looked like. There are no surviving sketches. There is no prototype. Some historians think it might have been a machine for embossing paper for the blind, while others think it was just a theoretical pipe dream. Mill had the vision, but as far as we can tell, he never actually built a functioning device that anyone else could use. He’s a footnote in history, a guy who saw the future but couldn't quite grasp it.
The Romantic Origins: Pellegrino Turri and the Countess
Fast forward to 1808. This is where the story gets kinda cinematic. An Italian inventor named Pellegrino Turri built a working typing machine for his friend, Countess Carolina Fantoni da Fivizzano.
The Countess was blind.
Back then, if you couldn't see, you couldn't write private letters. You had to dictate them to a scribe, which meant zero privacy. Turri wanted to give her independence. While we don't have the machine itself, we actually have the letters she typed on it. They still exist in Italian archives. Turri is also credited with inventing carbon paper to provide the "ink" for his machine. It worked, but it was a bespoke gift, not a commercial product. It was a beautiful, isolated spark of genius that didn't spark a revolution.
The "Typographer" and the Struggle for Speed
By the mid-1800s, the Industrial Revolution was in full swing, and everyone was trying to automate everything. In 1829, an American named William Austin Burt patented something he called the "Typographer."
It was a disaster.
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Burt's machine was basically a heavy wooden box with a swinging lever. You had to turn a dial to select a letter and then press down. It was actually slower than handwriting. Burt was an incredible surveyor—he literally invented the solar compass—but his typewriter was a commercial flop. A fire at the Patent Office in 1836 destroyed his original model, and while his descendants eventually built a replica, the world just wasn't ready for a machine that made work harder.
Why Sholes is the Name You Actually Know
So, if all these other people were tinkering with keys and levers, why does Christopher Latham Sholes get all the credit? Because he made it practical.
In 1867, Sholes, a Milwaukee printer and editor, teamed up with Samuel W. Soule and Carlos Glidden. They weren't trying to change the world at first; they were just trying to build a machine to page blank books and number tickets. But Glidden suggested they try making it do letters.
They looked at a telegraph key. They looked at a piano.
Their first prototype looked like a weird hybrid of a kitchen table and a musical instrument. It only typed capital letters. It was glitchy. But it was fast. Sholes is the one who realized that if you typed too quickly, the mechanical bars would clash and jam. His solution? The QWERTY layout. He intentionally separated common letter pairs (like 'S' and 'T') to slow the hammers down just enough to prevent jams.
You are reading this on a QWERTY layout right now. Sholes' mechanical workaround from the 1870s is still the global standard for digital communication in 2026. That is wild.
The Remington Deal: Making it a Business
Inventing something is one thing. Selling it is another. Sholes was a tinkerer, not a tycoon. He eventually sold his rights to the machine for a measly $12,000. The buyer? E. Remington and Sons.
Yes, the gun company.
After the Civil War, Remington needed to diversify. They had the precision machinery used to make rifles, which turned out to be perfect for making tiny, intricate typewriter parts. In 1874, the Sholes and Glidden Type-Writer hit the market. It looked like a sewing machine—it even had a foot pedal to return the carriage!
It wasn't an overnight success. Mark Twain was one of the first people to buy one, and he claimed he was the first author to submit a typed manuscript (Life on the Mississippi), though he later complained that the machine "was corrupting his morals" because it made him want to swear.
The Forgotten Competitors
While Sholes and Remington were duking it out, other inventors were trying different paths. There was the "Hansen Writing Ball" from Denmark (1865), which looked like a pincushion covered in keys. It was actually the first typewriter ever sold commercially, and Friedrich Nietzsche used one because his failing eyesight made writing by hand impossible.
Then there were "index typewriters." These were cheap, slow machines where you pointed a needle at a letter and clicked a button. They were marketed to children and people who couldn't afford a $100 Remington (which was a fortune back then).
Misconceptions That Just Won't Die
- "The typewriter was invented to help the blind." This is partially true for Turri and Hansen, but Sholes and the later Americans were purely focused on business efficiency and "manuscript" speed.
- "QWERTY was designed to slow us down." Not exactly. It was designed to keep the bars from hitting each other. It actually allowed for faster overall typing because the machine didn't jam every five seconds.
- "Thomas Edison invented it." Nope. He worked on an electric typewriter very early on, but his version didn't catch on. He was too busy with lightbulbs and phonographs.
Actionable Insights for History Buffs and Writers
If you’re fascinated by the evolution of writing tech, don't just read about it. The history of the typewriter is a lesson in "good enough" beating "perfect." Sholes didn't have the best machine; he had the one that was most manufacturable and "usable enough" to set a standard.
- Visit a Museum: If you're ever in Milwaukee, check out the Sholes archives. Seeing the raw, wooden prototypes makes you realize how "homemade" this revolution really was.
- Try a Mechanical Keyboard: Modern mechanical keyboards are a direct tactile descendant of these 19th-century beasts. If you want to feel the "thwack" that Sholes intended, look for "Blue" switches.
- Study Standard Persistence: Use the QWERTY story as a case study. Sometimes the first "workable" solution becomes the permanent standard, even if better options (like the Dvorak keyboard) come along later.
- Collect Wisely: If you’re looking to buy an antique typewriter, skip the common 1940s Royals unless you want to use them. If you want a piece of history related to the "inventors," look for early Underwoods or Remingtons with "blind" typing (where the paper is hidden while you type).
The story of the typewriter is basically a 150-year-long relay race. Henry Mill started the jog, Pellegrino Turri gave it some heart, and Christopher Sholes finally crossed the finish line into the modern office. It wasn't one person; it was a collective human obsession with making our thoughts move faster than a pen could carry them.