Christopher Latham Sholes
C. Latham Sholes | |
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16th district | |
In office June 5, 1848 – January 7, 1850 | |
Preceded by | Position Established |
Succeeded by | Elijah Steele |
Member of the Wisconsin State Assembly from the Kenosha 1st district | |
In office January 5, 1852 – January 2, 1854 | |
Preceded by | Henry Johnson |
Succeeded by | Samuel Hale Jr. |
Personal details | |
Born | Christopher Latham Sholes February 14, 1819 Mooresburg, Penn., U.S. |
Died | February 17, 1890 Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S. | (aged 71)
Resting place | Forest Home Cemetery, Milwaukee, Wisconsin[1] |
Political party |
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Spouse | Mary Jane McKinney (died 1888) |
Children |
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Parents |
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Relatives | Charles Sholes (brother) |
Occupation | Printer, inventor, legislator |
Known for | "The Father of the typewriter,"[1] inventor of the QWERTY keyboard |
Signature | ![]() |
Christopher Latham Sholes (February 14, 1819 – February 17, 1890) was an American
Youth and political career
Born in
He became a
He was the younger brother of
The "Voree Record"
In 1845, Sholes was working as editor of the Southport Telegraph, a small newspaper in Kenosha. During this time, he heard about the alleged discovery of the
Inventing the typewriter
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e3/Pterotype.jpg/250px-Pterotype.jpg)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c9/Invention_of_the_Typewriter.jpg/250px-Invention_of_the_Typewriter.jpg)
Typewriters with various keyboards had been invented as early as 1714 by
Sholes had moved to Milwaukee and became the editor of a newspaper. Following a strike by compositors at his printing press, he tried building a machine for
Sholes and Soule showed their machine to Carlos Glidden, a lawyer and amateur inventor at the machine shop who was working on a mechanical plow. Glidden wondered if the machine could not be made to produce letters and words as well. Further inspiration came in July 1867, when Sholes came across a short note in Scientific American[15] describing the "Pterotype", a prototype typewriter that had been invented by John Pratt. From the description, Sholes decided that the Pterotype was too complex and set out to make his own machine, whose name he got from the article: the typewriting machine, or typewriter.
For this project, Soule was again enlisted and Glidden joined them as a third partner to provide funding. The Scientific American article (unillustrated) had figuratively used the phrase "literary piano"; the first model that the trio built had a keyboard literally resembling a piano. It had black keys and white keys, laid out in two rows. It did not contain keys for the numerals 0 or 1 because the letters O and I were deemed sufficient:
3 5 7 9 N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
2 4 6 8 . A B C D E F G H I J K L M
The first row was made of ivory and the second of ebony, the rest of the framework was wooden. Despite the evident prior art by Pratt, it was in this same form that Sholes, Glidden and Soule were granted patents for their invention on June 23, 1868[16] and July 14.[17] The first document to be produced on a typewriter was a contract that Sholes had written, in his capacity as the comptroller for the city of Milwaukee. Machines similar to Sholes's had been previously used by the blind for embossing, but by Sholes's time the inked ribbon had been invented, which made typewriting in its current form possible.[14]
At this stage, the Sholes-Glidden-Soule typewriter was only one among dozens of similar inventions. They wrote hundreds of letters on their machine to various people, one of whom was James Densmore of Meadville, Pennsylvania. Densmore believed that the typewriter would be highly profitable, and offered to buy a share of the patent, without even having seen the machine. The trio immediately sold him one-fourth of the patent in return for his paying all their expenses so far. When Densmore eventually examined the machine in March 1867, he declared that it was good for nothing in its current form, and urged them to start improving it. Discouraged, Soule and Glidden left the project, leaving Sholes and Densmore in sole possession of the patent.
Realizing that
This candid fault-finding is just what we need. We had better have it now than after we begin manufacturing. Where Clephane points out a weak lever or rod let us make it strong. Where a spacer or an inker works stiffly, let us make it work smoothly. Then, depend upon Clephane for all the praise we deserve.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9a/Sholes_typewriter.jpg/250px-Sholes_typewriter.jpg)
Sholes took this advice and set to improve the machine at every iteration, until they were satisfied that Clephane had taught them everything he could. By this time, they had manufactured 50 machines or so, at an average cost of $250 (equivalent to almost $5,000 in 2020). They decided to have the machine examined by an expert mechanic, who directed them to E. Remington and Sons (which later became the Remington Arms Company), manufacturers of firearms, sewing machines and farm tools. In early 1873, they approached Remington, who decided to buy the patent from them. Sholes sold his half for $12,000, while Densmore, still a stronger believer in the machine, insisted on a royalty, which would eventually fetch him $1.5 million.[14]
Sholes returned to Milwaukee and continued to work on new improvements for the typewriter throughout the 1870s, which included the QWERTY keyboard (1873).[19] James Densmore had suggested splitting up commonly used letter combinations in order to solve a jamming problem caused by the slow method of recovering from a keystroke: weights, not springs, returned all parts to the "rest" position. This concept was later refined by Sholes and the resulting QWERTY layout is still used today on both typewriters and English language computer keyboards, although the jamming problem no longer exists.
Sholes died on February 17, 1890, after battling tuberculosis for nine years.[20] He is buried at Forest Home Cemetery in Milwaukee.
Notes
- ^ a b Weller 1918.
- ^ "Early Typewriter History"
- ^ Larson 2004.
- ^ Hendrickson 1956.
- ^ Anonymous 2012.
- ^ Southport Telegraph February 16, 1841 (Vol. 1, No. 36); p. 3, col. 3
- ^ Wisconsin Historical Society n.d.
- ^ "Members of the Wisconsin Legislature 1848–1999" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on December 9, 2006. Retrieved January 17, 2015.
- ^ "A Brief History of Wisconsin's Death Penalty". Wisbar.org. Archived from the original on August 14, 2012. Retrieved October 12, 2011.
- Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Sholes, Charles Clark 1816–1867". Wisconsinhistory.org. Archived from the original on August 31, 2017. Retrieved October 12, 2011.
- ^ See "Voree Plates" at http://www.strangite.org/Plates.htm Archived 2012-09-17 at archive.today.
- ^ Fitzpatrick 1970, pp. 36–37.
- ^ a b c d e Iles 1912.
- ^ "Type-Writing Machine". Scientific American. 17 (1): 3. July 6, 1867. Retrieved January 14, 2009.
- ^ "#79265". Archived from the original on November 15, 2011. Retrieved October 12, 2011.
- ^ "#79868". Archived from the original on November 16, 2011. Retrieved October 12, 2011.
- ^ Mares 1909.
- ^ "The Sholes (QWERTY) Keyboard". Cs.ttu.ee. Archived from the original on October 9, 2011. Retrieved October 12, 2011.
- Scranton Tribune. Milwaukee, Wisconsin. February 19, 1890. p. 2. Retrieved January 6, 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
References
- Anonymous (April 24, 2011). "Hall Braille Writer". American Printing House for the Blind, Inc. Archived from the original on April 27, 2012. Retrieved February 29, 2012.
- Fitzpatrick, Doyle (1970). "The King Strang Story". National Heritage.
- Foulke, Arthur Toye (1961). Mr. Typewriter: A biography of Christopher Latham Sholes. Boston: Christopher Publishing House. p. 137 – via Internet Archives.
- Hendrickson, Walter B. (1956). "The Three Lives of Frank H. Hall" (PDF). Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society. 49 (3). University of Illinois Press. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 6, 2010.
- Iles, George (1912). Leading American Inventors. New York: Henry Holt and Company.
- Larson, Erik (2004). A Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America. New York: Vintage Books, a Division of Random House, Inc. p. 291 (Adobe epub book). ISBN 9781400076314.
- Mares, G.C. (1909). The history of the typewriter, successor to the pen: An illustrated account of the origin, rise, and development of the writing machine. London: Guilbert Putnam. Reprinted by Post-era Books, Arcadia, CA, 1985.
- Rehr, Darryl. "The First Typewriter". The QWERTY Connection. Archived from the original on November 3, 1999. Retrieved May 11, 2005.
- Who invented the typewriter?
- Sholes and Glidden typewriter
- US 79265, Sholes, C. L., issued 1868
- US 79868, Sholes, C. L., issued 1868
- US 182511, Sholes, C. L., issued 1876
- US 199382, Sholes, C. L., issued 1878
- US 200321, Sholes, C. L., issued 1878
- US 207557, Sholes, C. L., issued 1878
- US 207558, Sholes, C. L., issued 1878
- US 207559, Sholes, C. L., issued 1878
- Weller, Charles Edward (1918). The Early History of the Typewriter. Chase & Shepard, printers. p. 75.
- "Sholes, Christopher Pichon 1819–1890". Dictionary. Wisconsin Historical Society. Archived from the original on February 10, 2009. Retrieved October 12, 2011.
External links
Media related to Christopher Latham Sholes at Wikimedia Commons