Remember the typewriter? Here’s a review by Joan Acocella of a new title “The Iron Whim: A Fragmented History of Typewriting” (Cornell; $29.95), by Darren Wershler-Henry, a professor of communication studies in Ontario, that takes a fond look back at more than a century of those clackety-clacking keys.
Along the way, you’ll find out how the QWERTY keyboard came about, who the first manufacturer of the typewriter was–Remington, America’s oldest gunmaker who needed to broaden their product line, who used a typewriter (Nietzsche, Mark Twain and Henry James) and how the typewriter served as a mechanism that essentially brought women into the workforce. From The New Yorker.
Books on the history of the typewriter
Mechanical Typewriters: Their History, Value, and Legacy
The Typewriter: An Illustrated History
The typewriter; a short history,: On its 75th anniversary, 1873-1948