You’ve probably heard of Christopher Latham Sholes. If you look up who is the inventor of the typewriter, his name usually pops up first, draped in the glory of the QWERTY keyboard. But honestly? The story is way more crowded than a history textbook makes it look. History loves a lone genius, but the typewriter didn't just pop out of one guy's brain in a vacuum. It was a chaotic, decades-long pile-on of failed patents, ink-stained fingers, and eccentric noblemen.
Think about it.
Before we had the sleek laptops of 2026, people were literally stabbing paper with metal bits just to see if they could make a legible mark. It wasn't just about speed at first. It was about legibility, helping the blind read, and honestly, just seeing if a machine could mimic the human hand. It’s a wild ride.
The 1714 Ghost: Henry Mill’s Early Vision
If we're being technical—and we should be—the "first" patent for something resembling a typewriter goes back way further than the 1800s. In 1714, an English engineer named Henry Mill received a patent from Queen Anne. He described an "artificial machine or method for the impressing or transcribing of letters, singly or progressively one after another, as in writing."
Sounds perfect, right?
Well, there’s a catch. We have no drawings. No prototype survived. No one knows if he actually built the thing or if it was just a high-concept dream that died with him. Because of that, most historians give him a nod but don't hand him the crown. He had the idea, but in the world of invention, if it doesn’t leave a paper trail, did it even happen?
The "Writing Ball" and the European Contenders
Before Sholes ever touched a key in Wisconsin, a Danish pastor named Rasmus Malling-Hansen was already selling a device called the Writing Ball. This thing looked like a pincushion made of brass. It was weird. It was beautiful. And it was actually fast.
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Friedrich Nietzsche even owned one. He used it because his eyesight was failing, and the machine allowed him to write without looking at the page. Malling-Hansen’s invention was technically superior in many ways to what came later, but it was expensive and handcrafted. It wasn't a "product" for the masses; it was a luxury for the elite and the desperate.
Then you had Giuseppe Ravizza in Italy. Around 1855, he created the Cembalo scrivano. He spent his whole life tweaking it, trying to figure out how to let the typist actually see what they were typing. That’s a huge deal. Early machines were "blind writers," meaning the type hit the underside of the platen. You had to stop, lift the carriage, and pray you hadn't made a typo five sentences ago. Ravizza was a pioneer, but he lacked the industrial backing to make his machine a global standard.
Christopher Latham Sholes: The Man Who Made It Stick
So, why does Sholes get the "inventor" tag in most Google searches? Because he made it a business.
In 1867, Sholes, along with Samuel W. Soulé and Carlos Glidden, started tinkering in a Milwaukee machine shop. They weren't trying to change the world; they were originally trying to build a machine to page-number ledgers. Glidden supposedly asked, "If we can do numbers, why can't we do letters?"
That sparked everything.
The QWERTY Legacy
The first Sholes and Glidden machine was a clunky beast that looked like a sewing machine. It even had a foot pedal to return the carriage. But Sholes’ real stroke of genius—or curse, depending on how much your pinky finger hurts—was the keyboard layout.
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Legend says he designed QWERTY to slow typists down because the mechanical arms (typebars) kept clashing and jamming. That’s actually a bit of a myth. The reality is more about telegraph operators. The layout was refined based on feedback from people who transcribed Morse code. They needed certain letters near each other to handle common English pairings without the arms getting tangled.
In 1873, Sholes ran out of money and patience. He sold the rights to E. Remington & Sons, the famous arms manufacturer. They had the precision machinery to mass-produce the typewriter. This is where the invention moved from a "curiosity" to a "tool." Once the Remington No. 2 hit the market in 1878, with a shift key for capital letters, the typewriter as we know it was born.
Why We Should Stop Looking for Just One Person
The question of who is the inventor of the typewriter is kinda like asking who invented the car. Is it the guy who made the first engine? The first chassis? The first one that sold a million units?
Here is a quick reality check of the heavy hitters:
- Pellegrino Turri (1808): Built a machine for his blind friend, Countess Carolina Fantoni da Fivizzano. We still have the letters she typed on it. This is some of the earliest physical proof of a functional typewriter.
- William Austin Burt (1829): He called his the "Typographer." It was basically a box with a swinging lever. It was actually slower than handwriting, so it bombed commercially.
- Charles Thurber (1843): Patented a machine to help the "nervous" and the "blind." It used a rotating wheel. Slow but functional.
The invention was an evolution. Sholes wasn't the "first" to make a machine that typed, but he was the first to make a machine that worked in a way that businesses could use. He turned it into an industry. He changed how offices looked, and arguably, he was responsible for the first major wave of women entering the professional workforce as "typewriters" (that’s what the operators were called back then).
The Dark Horse: The Sholes-Glidden Relationship
Carlos Glidden doesn't get enough credit. He was the one who kept pushing Sholes when Sholes wanted to quit. Sholes was a tinkerer, a poet, and a politician—he was often discouraged by the mechanical failures. Glidden was the spark. Without Glidden’s constant "what if," Sholes might have just stuck to his printing business.
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And then there’s James Densmore. He was the aggressive financier who bought into the project and demanded Sholes keep improving it. Densmore was the one who realized that the machine was worthless unless it could be manufactured perfectly. He was the "Steve Jobs" to Sholes’ "Wozniak."
What Most People Get Wrong
The biggest misconception? That the typewriter was an overnight success.
It wasn't.
For the first decade, people hated them. They were loud. They were expensive ($125 in the 1870s was a fortune). People thought it was rude to send a "printed" letter because it looked like a business circular rather than a personal note. Mark Twain was one of the first adopters, claiming he was the first author to submit a typed manuscript (Life on the Mississippi), though even he had a love-hate relationship with the "clattering machine."
Moving Forward: Why This History Matters Today
Understanding who is the inventor of the typewriter teaches us that innovation is messy. It’s never a straight line.
If you're looking to apply this "inventor mindset" to your own work or just want to appreciate the tech you're using to read this, here are some actionable ways to dig deeper:
- Check the "Visible" Evolution: If you ever visit a museum, look for "blind writers" vs. "visible writers." It helps you understand why UI/UX (user experience) design started over a hundred years ago, not in Silicon Valley.
- Try a Mechanical Keyboard: To get a feel for why Sholes’ layout survived, use a high-travel mechanical keyboard. You’ll feel the tactile "click" that defined communication for a century.
- Research the "Typing Ball": Look up the Malling-Hansen Writing Ball. It’s a masterpiece of industrial design that looks like it belongs in a sci-fi movie, proving that the "winning" design (QWERTY) isn't always the "best" design.
- Trace Your Tools: Take one tool you use daily—like a digital pen or a mouse—and look up the first patent. You'll likely find a dozen names you’ve never heard of before you find the one that became famous.
The typewriter wasn't just a machine; it was the beginning of the information age. Sholes may have crossed the finish line first in terms of commercial success, but he was standing on the shoulders of a hundred frustrated, ink-covered geniuses.