Writing an article with a “type-writer” was a novel experience in 1875. Until this point, all writing was accomplished with a pen or quill or some other writing implement. Now, only a year after the introduction of the Sholes & Glidden Type Writer, entire articles were being drafted, in real time, on mechanical writing machines.
Explained Oliver Optic’s Magazine (May 1875), “This article was written with the machine called a Type-writer, after only a few hours’ practice. It was not written with a pen first, and then copied, but was composed at the instrument, even to the underscoring of the word in this sentence. It has the general appearance of a sewing-machine, and we sit in a chair in front of it, playing upon it as though it were a piano; only we can’t play on the piano, and we can play on this thing ‘like fun.’ In fact, it is nothing but fun to operate the machine.”
The magazine commented that they “thought it would be impossible to ‘compose’ with the Type-writer, but we find no difficulty in doing so.”
At the onset, it was difficult for people to see the typewriter as anything other than a printing press. Original drafts were composed by hand or else dictated, and then typed. As people grew adept at typing, handwriting gradually subsided. Within a few generations, original compositions were drafted exclusively on typewriters, and, generations later, keyboards.
Much the way this blog entry was composed.
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