E. Remington and Sons

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E. Remington and Sons

E. Remington and Sons (1816–1896) was a manufacturer of firearms and typewriters. Founded in 1816 by Eliphalet Remington in Ilion, New York, on March 1, 1873, it became known for manufacturing the first commercial typewriter.

History

Eliphalet Remington
Philo Remington
Samuel Remington
Eliphalet Remington, Jr.

The rifle barrel

There are two versions of the origin story of the first Remington rifle barrel. One holds that the younger Remington wanted to purchase a rifle and lacked the money to buy one, so he made his own. The other states that he forged a barrel from wrought iron to see if he could build a better rifle than he could buy.[1] Both versions have him taking the barrel to a gunsmith to have it rifled.[2]

Eliphalet II forged his first rifle barrel as a young blacksmith in 1816 and finished second place in a local shooting match with it. Despite not winning the match, he proceeded to make barrels to meet the growing demand for flintlock rifles in the Mohawk Valley. With the completion of the Erie Canal, connecting Buffalo with Albany, commerce in the Mohawk Valley expanded remarkably, as did the demand for rifle barrels.[3]

To meet the increased demand for rifle barrels, in 1828 the Remingtons moved their forge and foundry from its rural setting to 100 acres (0.40 km2) of land they had purchased astride the canal and abutting the Mohawk River near a town then called Morgan's Landing (later Ilion), New York.[4] The move coincided with the elder Eliphalet's death, and Eliphalet II assumed control of the business.[5]

Becoming "E. Remington & Sons"

In 1839 Eliphalet was joined by his oldest son,

percussion locks made in Birmingham, England but marked with their stamp "REMINGTON", and later sets of brass gun furniture, including trigger guards, butt plates, and patch boxes. After 1846, martial longarm and then revolver production dominated the company's workforce.[5][6]

In 1848, the company purchased gun-making machinery from the

U.S. Army with rifles in the Mexican–American War (1846 to 1848). Shortly after, Remington took over a defaulted contract (by John Griffith of Cincinnati) for 5,000 U.S. Model 1841 Percussion Mississippi rifles. Based on the success of filling these orders, subsequent contracts followed in the 1850s.[4][5]

In 1856 the company expanded to manufacturing agricultural implements. Upon Eliphalet's death in 1861, his son, Philo, took over the firm during the

Philadelphia in 1876.[citation needed
]

Remington's typewriter

Sholes & Glidden Typewriter, 1876

On June 23, 1868, a patent was granted to

Samuel W. Soule for a "Type-Writer" which was eventually developed into the Sholes and Glidden typewriter, the first device that allowed an operator to type substantially faster than a person could write by hand. The patent (U.S. 79,265) was sold for $12,000 to Densmore and Yost, who agreed with E. Remington and Sons (then famous as a manufacturer of sewing machines) to commercialize what was known as the Sholes and Glidden Type-Writer. Remington started production of their first typewriter on March 1, 1873, in Ilion, New York
. The Type-Writer introduced the QWERTY, designed by Sholes, and the success of the follow-up Remington No. 2 of 1878 – the first typewriter to include both upper and lower case letters via a shift key – led to the popularity of the QWERTY layout.[7]

Successor companies

Remington Arms

Main article: Remington Arms
Remington-Rider
Remington .46 Conversion display

E. Remington & Sons supplied a large proportion of the

Winchester Repeating Arms Company of New Haven, Connecticut, at which time the name was formally changed to the Remington Arms Company.[8]

Remington, in addition, was one of the most successful gun manufacturers in the world

Remington Rolling Block action rifle. This single-shot, large-caliber black-powder cartridge rifle was exported in the millions all over the world, including shipments to France, Egypt, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, Argentina, Mexico, and the Papal States. It was a critical gun supplier of small arms used by the United States government in World War I (U.S. involvement 1917 to 1918) and World War II
(U.S. involvement 1941 to 1945)

Remington Typewriter Company

1909 advertisement for the Remington No. 10 and 11

In 1886, E. Remington and Sons sold its typewriter business to the Standard Typewriter Manufacturing Company, Inc. Included were the rights to use the Remington name. The buyers were William O. Wyckoff, Harry H. Benedict, and Clarence Seamans, all of whom worked for Remington.

Standard Typewriter changed its name in 1902 to Remington Typewriter Company.

electric razors
.

References

Notes

  1. ^ Society, Herkimer County Historical; Smith, Arthur T. (1899). Papers Read Before the Herkimer County Historical Society During the Years 1896-. Citizen Publishing Company. pp. 78–82.
  2. ISBN 978-1-4402-2699-1
    .
  3. ^ Newman, Stephen Morrell (1881). America: an encyclopaedia of its history and biography. Horace King. p. 411.
  4. ^
    ISBN 0-87349-313-3
    .
  5. ^
    ISBN 978-1-59228-690-4.[permanent dead link
    ]
  6. ISBN 978-1-59228-690-4.[permanent dead link
    ]
  7. ISBN 978-0-8147-5178-7
    .
  8. doi:10.1108/JHRM-11-2012-0028
    .
  9. ^ "Remington Standard No. 6 Typewriter".
  10. ^ Saunders, Cece; Schneiderman-Fox, Faline (March 2010). Documentation – Remington Rand Facility, 180 Johnson Street, Middletown, Connecticut (PDF). Historical Perspectives, Inc. p. 6. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 4, 2016. Retrieved September 11, 2014.

Bibliography

  • Beeching, Wilfred A. (1974). Century of the Typewriter. New York: St. Martin's Press.
    ISBN 0-434-90120-2
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