Working Paper No. 74, Some Influential Effects of the Typewriter on the American Economy

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Working Paper No. 74, Some In>uential Effects of Working Paper No. 74, Some In>uential Effects of

the Typewriter on the American Economy the Typewriter on the American Economy

Bander Qadan

Portland State University

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Qadan, Bander, "Some In>uential Effects of the Typewriter on the American Economy, Working Paper No.

74", Portland State University Economics Working Papers. 74. (15 December 2022) i + 13 pages.

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Some Influential Effects of the

Typewriter on the American Economy

Working Paper No. 74

Authored by: Bander Qadan

Submitted for: EC456, “American Economic History, First Century”

15 December 2022; i + 13 pages

Prepared for: Professor John Hall

Abstract: This inquiry seeks to establish that the introduction of the typewriter

generated effects upon the American economy by promoting productivity

increases, enhancing communications, and improving management. In addition,

this inquiry seeks to illustrate how the typewriter affected American businesses by

providing efficiency in time management and documents’ production.

Furthermore, this inquiry shall showcase how the typewriter affected women’s

work in the American economy, especially with respect to inclusivity within the

workplace as well as the enhancement of communications. Additionally, this

inquiry shall analyze how the development of the QWERTY keyboard and its

related “lock-in” generated effects on the American economy.

Journal of Economic Literature Classification Codes: N11, N31, O31

Key Words: American Economy, Communication, Productivity,

QWERTY, Remington Typewriter

1

This inquiry seeks to establish that the introduction of the typewriter generated

effects upon the American economy by promoting productivity increases,

enhancing communications, and improving management. Indeed, writing has a

long history and is noted to have emerged almost 5000 years ago when scribes

were engaged for carrying on communications. The introduction of the typewrite

prior to the 1900s in America would mark this machine as integral as well as life-

changing for businesses and job seekers. The typewriter rapidly spread throughout

the late 1800s, solidifying its importance and position in the American economy.

With reference to author P. G. Hubert (1888, 1-2), because of the

typewriter's extensive use, almost every facet of American culture could point to at

least one significant step forward. One of the most revolutionizing developments

that came about from the typewriter relates to how quickly women could enter the

workforce as typists, and also establish themselves in various careers. Businessmen

hailed the typewriter for increasing profits; kings and queens valued the typewriter

for their own correspondence; teachers and students marveled at the significant

improvement in their English grammar through use of the typewriter.

According to David (1985, 334-335), one way the typewriter revolutionized

typing is through providing a foundation for the development of the famous and

widely used QWERTY keyboard for typing. Like calligraphy, the typewriter has

served as a catalyst for revolutionizing the way writing and typing have developed

2

into an array of outlets for expression. This would include marketing, designing,

editing, and publishing.

Productivity Increases

The history of the typewriter roots itself in the perfecting of everyday tasks,

somewhat like sewing clothes. Similar to the sewing machine, the typewriter

would no longer be reliant on use of the writing pen. With the introduction of the

typewriter, one could then produce many more documents within the same span of

time needed for producing documents using the pen and paper. In The Typewriter;

Its Growth and Uses, author P.G. Hubert (1888, 1) argues that at the time the

typewriter was invented, businessmen were reluctant offer this machine the

opportunity to integrate into a workplace. In short, early on, the typewriter was

viewed as a diversion from what was deemed important. In short, the typewriter

was viewed as a waste of time. However, Hubert (1888, 1) argues that people had

to be persuaded to use the typewriter in order to recognize its vast benefits; of what

this machine is indeed capable of producing. Hubert (1888, 1) goes on to elaborate

that an operator working with the assistance of the typewriter would be able to

complete more written communications in a single day than a half dozen clerks

working with pens and paper, and the work that they turned out would be of a

3

higher quality. Quickly, the typewriter proved to be the most significant time and

effort saving tool available to companies in the late 19

th

century.

According to Hubert (1888, 1-2), it is said that the typewriter was

prophesied many years before it was actually invented. Ideas underlying the

inventing of the the typewriter were scattered throughout the archives of the

English Patent Office and, subsequently, those of the United States Patent Office.

One could find primitive attempts at building a writing machine that was adequate

according to key criteria. Hubert (1888, 2) argues that according to the records kept

by the British Patent Office, a competent engineer named Henry Mill, who passed

away around the year 1770, was awarded the first invention for a writing machine

on January 7th, 1714. However, according to the records, no drawings of Mill’s

writing machine were to be found in the archives. According to Hubert (1888, 1),

no writing machine in the English Patent Office proved to be optimal for

commercial production and broad distribution.

Hubert (1888, 3) notes that it was not until Year 1867, and in Milwaukee,

Wisconsin, that a typewriter was developed by one C. Latham Sholes, along with

Samuel W. Soulé, and Carlos Glidden. Hubert (1888, 3) further elaborates on how

Sholes and Soulé worked together with the aim of developing and perfecting a

device for numbering the pages of blank books and for printing serial numbers.

Hubert (1888, 3) emphasizes that Glidden took interest in the numbering device

4

and questioned why they were not able to develop a device that would aid them in

writing. Hubert (1888, 3-4) states that every one of the twenty-five to thirty

experimental typewriters that were produced proved marginally superior to the one

that came before it. Methodically, screw by screw, innovations offering

incremental advances to the writing machine continued until a suitable prototype

was carried to the major gun manufacturer known as E. Remington and Sons,

located in Ilion, New York. This was Year 1873. On this point Hubert (1888, 4)

emphasizes that due to the great will and judgment of Philo Remington, the

typewriter earned the focus of a number of talented machinists who put into

feasible shape a significant portion of what had merely been recommended by the

original inventors. These skilled machinists were responsible for the development

what in the History of Technology would be known as the “Remington

typewriter”—the typewriter that would help to revolutionize the American

economy during the 20

th

century. Upon its release into the American market,

Hubert (1888, 4) argues that professionals, such as as businessmen, clergymen,

newspapermen, and lawyers made use of the Remington typewriter. However, and

according to Hubert (1888, 4), it was not until 1882 that this machine’s true

potential was fully realized; up until that point, the typewriter had been going

through phases of trials and errors.

5

According to Hubert (1888, 4-6), the most notable accomplishment of the

typewriter, as well as the primary cause for its prosperity and appeal, has naturally

been the time savings that have been achieved in corporate offices as a result of its

use. Hubert (1888, 6) notes that this is now such common knowledge that it hardly

needs any dispute, and it explains the astounding growth in the sale of Remington

typewriters, which went from 1,400 in 1882 to 14,000 in 1887.

According to Hubert (1888, 6), commercial establishments have shown that using a

typewriter—such as the Remington typewriter—as opposed to writing with a pen,

results in a time savings of forty minutes per hour, which, when converted to hours

and minutes, equates to a time savings of five hours and twenty minutes per

working day. In a country like America proved to be where time is money, the

Remington typewriter is hailed as a valuable invention that revolutionized

businesses.

Enhanced Communication

In Women and the Typewriter during the First Fifty Years, 1873-1923, author

Robert A. Waller (1986, 39) seeks to determine how modern Americans

understood the influence that the typewriter had upon women throughout the first

half century after the introduction of commercial models; that is, while the nascent

typewriter was transitioning from an inventor's dream to a societal requirement.

6

According to Waller (1986, 40), he envisioned that the composition of the

workforce was going to look different later in the 20

th

century, as a direct

consequence of the widespread adoption of the typewriter. According to the results

of the 12

th

U.S. Census, Waller (1986, 40) claims that "stenographers and typists"

were one of the eleven occupational categories in which women made up more

than three quarters of all workers aged 16 and older. Waller notes that the data

suggested a 305 percent rise in the number of women working as stenographers

and typists between the years 1890 and 1900, making this the occupational

category that exhibited the greatest degrees of change.

With the influence of the typewriter spreading like fire across working

America, Waller (1986, 41) states that as an innovation the typewriter promoted a

sense of well-being among many as its use boosted productivity levels. Waller

(1986, 41) notes that given the American desire for speed and equating this

phenomena with development, the typewriter’s dissemination helped to optimize a

feeling of well-being among many. Waller (1986, 41) claims that in a never-ending

loop, future generations would benefit from what Sholes had fathered and what

Remington had produced.

According to Waller (1986, 41), there emerged an aversion to the Remington

typewriter that appears related to its price. The fact that one Remington typewriter

could cost as much as $125.00, while a pen could be had for a mere cent, generated

7

a broadly shared skepticism from potential purchasers of typewriters. Waller

(1986, 41) notes that people took the Remington typewriter as a sculptural piece,

certainly deserving of praise. However, as the price had risen so steeply, people

shied away from making purchases. Waller (1986, 42) states that eventually sales

slowed down and Remington actually withdrew from manufacturing typewriters.

Waller (1986, 41) notes that rights to manufacture and sales were secured by the

firm of Wyckoff, Seamans and Benedict. According to Waller (1986, 41-42), this

new firm decided to roll out the typewriter under a marketing campaign that aimed

to educate the public on the how to use the typewriter and at which tasks the

typewriter could be applied successfully to carry out tasks. Waller (1986, 42) notes

that it took some time, but eventually professional stenographers, legal

professionals, and ultimately business groups were persuaded of the benefits of the

machine's clear and succinct writing capacities for their businesses. These

promotional efforts were helped along by simultaneous advancements in

technology related to the typewriter.

According to Waller (1986, 42), in 1880 the Young Women's Christian

Association of New York City started offering classes in phonography (also known

as stenography). The practice of phonography was offered in conjunction with

typewriting alone with the statement that " some firms prefer typewriting to

penmanship." Soon enough, commercial universities and private organizations

8

were adding typing lessons to their curricula, and typewriter manufacturers went

about building training schools so that they could offer qualified craftspeople to

complement the machine. Additionally, Waller (1986, 42-43) indicates that the

country's secondary schools encouraged the development of the required abilities.

In most cases, the instruction of shorthand and typing were coupled together as

abilities that needed to be fortified.

According to Waller (1986, 45-46), women faced discriminatory remarks in

the organizations that hired operators and typists. Men would single out women for

their looks and seemed prone to make inappropriate comments. Waller (1986, 45-

46) notes that the New York Times took note of what had been transpiring in the

workplace between men and women, and put together a collection of letters and

editorial statements regarding this issue, though the issue went unresolved.

According to Waller (1986, 46), the Historical Society of Herkimer County in

which Ilion is located published a commemorative volume on The Story of the

Typewriter. Chapter Eight, titled “How Women Achieve Economic Emancipation

Through the Writing Machine,” placed special emphasis upon the financial

autonomy of women as a means for lowering the threshold for their participation in

the commercial sector. Waller (1986, 46) notes that the author pointed out that a

simultaneous trend was the progression of feminism, which included the expansion

of voting rights, a broader involvement in public life, and a larger degree of

9

personal liberty. Waller (1986, 46) notes that in spite of the fact that this aspect of

the typewriter's influence may have received less attention in the present than one

would anticipate based upon retrospect, it is difficult for people who are living

through significant change to comprehend all of the repercussions of that shift.

Waller (1986, 47) notes that as early users of the typewriter saw it, it is hard

to give a short summary of how it changed society. People at the time thought that

the writing machine and its many offspring—such as the adding machine, the

linotype, the dictaphone, and the mimeograph—changed the role of women in

society, especially in the business world.

Improvements in Management

In the journal article “Clio and the Economics of QWERTY,” author Paul A.

David (1985, 332) seeks to establish why institutions and even culture offered

resistance to altering or developing further the keyboard’s format. David (1985,

332) places emphasis on a “path-dependent” sequence, in which the events that

happened a long time ago or that were mostly based on chance and not on

systematic forces might wield large and measurable effects of outcomes. David

(1985, 332) notes that people making use of the keyboard layout that one August

Dvorak and W. L. Dealey patented in 1932 have held most of the world records for

how fast they could generate words within a given timeframe. Furthermore, David

10

(1985, 332) indicates that when Dvorak died in 1975, he no longer had to deal with

the world's stubborn refusal to accept his work of converting the QWERTY to a

DSK format. David (1985, 332) states that Dvorak’s death came too soon for him

to be comforted by the Apple IIC computer's built-in switch, which instantly

changed the keyboard from QWERTY to virtual DSK, or to be made even more

upset by the misgivings that the switch to DSK would not be made very often.

According to David (1985, 334), for economists to understand what went

wrong in the 1890s, they must pay attention to the fact that typewriters were

starting to become part of a larger, more complex system of production that was

technically linked. David (1985, 334) notes that touch typing came out late in the

1880s. It was a big improvement over the four-finger hunt-and-peck method, and it

also proved important because it was made to work with the Remington QWERTY

keyboard from the start. With reference to David (1985, 334), touch-typing led to

three changes in the production system that were very important in making

QWERTY the most common keyboard layout. These changes were technical

interdependence, economies of scale, and investments that were almost impossible

to take back.

David (1985, 334) notes that technical interdependence intended that the

anticipated current value of a typewriter as a production tool depended on the

presence of suitable software created by typists' decisions about which keyboard to

11

learn. According to David (1985, 335), the economies of scale generated

consequences; the most significant of which was without a doubt the propensity for

the method of interference competition to lead towards de facto uniformity through

the strong influence of a single keyboard design. According to David (1985, 335),

this would indeed make intuitive sense as expectations would have generate effects

on the result if decisions were made with a forward-looking mindset rather than

shortsightedly on the premise of comparison between the present prices of various

systems. Simply because the buyers of the software and/or hardware anticipated it

to succeed, a certain system might lead to the defeat of competitors.

According to David (1985, 336), the initial advantage that QWERTY gained

through its affiliation with Remington proved to be numerically small; however,

when expectations became amplified, it may have been more than enough to

ensure that the industry would finally lock into a de facto QWERTY standard.

David (1985, 336) notes that the high costs of software conversion and the

resultant quasi-irreversibility of investments in specialized touch-typing talent do

indeed seem to have contributed to the incidence of this lock-in as early as the mid-

1890s.

In David’s understanding (1985, 336), regardless of the existence of

externalities that normal research predicts would conflict with achieving the

socially optimum degree of system compatibility, competitiveness in the absence

12

of flawless futures markets forced the industry early on towards standardizing on a

system thought to be suboptimal. David (1985, 336) notes that given the significant

technological interdependencies, scale economies, and irreversibility brought on by

learning and habit, it seems all too likely that standardization would tend to occur

and this could include the standardization of suboptimal technologies.

Conclusion

This inquiry has sought to establish that indeed the invention of the typewriter

influenced the American economy by increasing productivity, enhancing

communication, and providing improvements in management. The historical

nature of the typewriter as a revolutionizing force would hold true for its long

journey of contributing towards the advancement of the American economy

through its adoption by businesses, as well as a wide range of institutions and

organizations. The typewriter—just like penmanship and calligraphy—served as a

trigger point for numerous future innovations is areas such as graphic design and

digital typography. Clearly, the typewriter aided in radicalizing the workplace

especially for female workers, and mainly though offering jobs with tasks that

promoted their inclusivity in the workforce. The development of the typewriter

serves as a reminder regarding how the American economy started with

rudimentary foundations and worked its way towards becoming a global

13

powerhouse, famous for cranking out innovative tools and methodologies that have

and continue to wield influence.

Bibliography

David, Paul A. “Clio and the Economics of QWERTY.” The American Economic

Review, vol. 75, no. 2, 1985, pp. 332–37.

Hubert, P. G. “The Typewriter; Its Growth and Uses.” The North American

Review, vol. 146, no. 379, 1888.

Waller, Robert A. “Women and the Typewriter during the First Fifty Years,

1873-1923.” Studies in Popular Culture, vol. 9, no. 1, 1986, pp. 39–50.