Born in Pennsylvania, Christopher Latham Sholes (1819–1890) soon followed in the family footsteps of the printing industry. When he was a teenager, his family moved to Danville, Pennsylvania, where he became a printer’s devil (an apprentice at a print shop). At age 18, he moved to Green Bay, Wisconsin and joined his brothers who published the Wisconsin Democrat newspaper.
Sholes proved to be a hard worker, and quite industrious himself. By 1839, shortly after he had arrived in Wisconsin, he became editor of the Madison Enquirer and the following year launched his own newspaper in Kenosha, Wisconsin, which he called the Southport Telegraph (later renamed the Kenosha Telegraph). He remained the publisher and editor of the Southport (Kenosha) Telegraph for 17 years. But his passion for journalism didn’t stop at writing, editing, and printing the news. Sholes desired to make writing process easier.
The Political Landscape
During a time of fierce political battles, Sholes joined the fray. He'd grown up a Jacksonian Democrat and was appointed postmaster of Kenosha by President James K. Polk. But Sholes soon soured on the Democrat Party and switched to the Free Soil Party, whose political platform was based on the idea that all new states should be free of slavery. The Free Soil Party lasted from 1848 to 1854 before most of its proponents merged with the Republican Party.He became a Wisconsin state senator during the Free Soil Party’s inaugural year from 1848 to 1849. Three years later, from 1852 to 1853, Sholes served as a Wisconsin state assemblyman. He returned to the state senate from 1856 to 1857 to serve as a Republican. He was a strong supporter of Abraham Lincoln, and during the Civil War, while in his 40s, he served as the postmaster for Milwaukee.
Upgrading the ‘Writing Machines’
Before the typewriter became the typewriter, they were considered “writing machines.” These crude, clunky machines were difficult to use. As with practically every invention, it was only a matter of time before it was simplified and made user friendly. Shortly after the war ended, Sholes dedicated himself to creating a better machine.
Sholes contacted another colleague, James Denmore, an inventor turned venture capitalist, to request financial assistance in order to market the creation. Denmore was excited about the opportunity until he saw Sholes’s typewriter. It would not do. Denmore had about a dozen of these typewriters built so he could observe what worked and what didn’t.
Denmore believed in the idea, but it was not yet marketable. There were still issues that needed resolving. Over the course of several years, he continued to back the project financially, while Sholes, Glidden, and Soule perfected the writing machine.
A Commercial Success
By 1872, the Sholes & Glidden Type Writer was ready. It became the “first commercially successful device that rapidly printed alphanumeric characters on paper in any order.” Although it was called the Sholes & Glidden Type Writer, design credit was given to Sholes, and credit for the development of the typewriter was given to Glidden, Soule, and another inventor who assisted, Mathias Schwalbach. Of course, in order to get the invention to become a commercial successful, Denmore was indispensable.Denmore presented one of the typewriters to Remington Arms, a company that had made its money manufacturing weapons during the Civil War. Remington Arms now manufactured sewing machines. The company agreed to manufacture the typewriter, but there proved to still be several kinks that ultimately slowed sales.
A QWERTY Change
One of the common issues with the Sholes & Glidden Type Writer was that the most commonly used keys often got stuck. The typing arms were arranged alphabetically. When consecutive letters were used consecutively in words, and adjacent arms tried to hit the paper in rapid succession, one would collide with another and jam the machine. For example, for the word “biggest,” the typewriter’s S and T arms beside each other would jam when the S arm came up while the T arm came down.Sholes began reorganizing the layout of the keys. He ultimately developed what became known as the QWERTY keyboard, which is in reference to the first six letters on the top left of the keyboard. The QWERTY solution was to mix up the arms’ locations on the keyboard (for example, S and T are separated). The reorganization proved successful and remains the way all keyboards—from typewriters to laptops—are organized.
In 1874, Mark Twain was the most famous American to purchase the Sholes & Glidden Type Writer. Sales, however, were still relatively slow, but they soon took off as the Twain-termed Gilded Age continued. Sholes continued tinkering with his creation to make it easier and more efficient to use.
