Oliver Typewriter Company
inventor vice president | |
Products | See Typewriters section |
---|---|
Number of employees | 875 |
Footnotes / references [1] |
The Oliver Typewriter Company was an American typewriter manufacturer headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. The Oliver Typewriter was one of the first "visible print" typewriters, meaning text was visible to the typist as it was entered.[2] Oliver typewriters were marketed heavily for home use, using local distributors and sales on credit. Oliver produced more than one million machines between 1895 and 1928 and licensed its designs to several international firms.
Competitive pressure and financial troubles resulted in the company's liquidation in 1928. The company's assets were purchased by investors who formed The British Oliver Typewriter Company, which manufactured and licensed the machines until its own closure in the late 1950s. The last Oliver typewriter was produced in 1959.[3][4]
History
Thomas Oliver
Thomas Oliver was born in
While visiting Chicago to promote the machine, Oliver encountered businessman Delavan Smith, who became interested in the typewriter and bought the stock held by the Iowa investors. Oliver was given a 65% interest in the company and retained to continue development of the typewriter, at an annual salary of $3,000[8] ($106,000 per year in 2024). Oliver died suddenly of heart disease on February 9, 1909, aged 56.[9]
Illinois years
The Oliver Typewriter Company had begun operating in 1895, with its Chicago headquarters on the ninth floor of a building on the corner of Dearborn and Randolph Street. In 1896, manufacturing moved from Iowa to
Starting in 1899, the company established sales networks by encouraging customers to become local distributors. This method of marketing relied on word of mouth and emphasized sales made directly to neighbors (door-to-door) and, after 1905, sales on credit. In response to increased competition in the late 1910s, however, the company eliminated its network of local salesman and used the resulting savings in commissions to reduce the typewriter's $100 ($1,700 in 2024) price by half.[13] Sales increased and, at its peak, the company's labor force of 875 was producing 375 machines daily.[6] During World War I the company produced munitions for the British army and supplied typewriters for the military.[14] At the war's conclusion, the company subcontracted their factory to create car parts and movie projectors.[15]
In addition to its offices in Illinois, the company had branch offices in
British Oliver Typewriter Company
In 1928, the Oliver Typewriter Company was sold to investors who formed the British Oliver Typewriter Company in Croydon, England and established a factory there.[3][4][6][16] Production of Oliver's original, three-rowed keyboard design was discontinued in 1931 when the company began to produce a rebranded model of the "Fortuna" typewriter, a four-rowed German design. In 1935, the company began to produce the Halda-Norden standard typewriter, another licensed design, as model No. 20. The company, however, had to retool its machines and return to the original Oliver design when the British government placed large orders for the three-rowed No. 15 at the outbreak of World War II.[17]
Production of the No. 20 resumed around 1947, at which time the company began to license the Oliver name to several European manufacturing companies.[18] The standard desktop machine was eventually discontinued in favour of portable models; the company began to sell a German design, the Siemag Standard, as the Oliver standard. In 1958, Oliver purchased the Byron Typewriter Company, previously the Barlock Typewriter Company, of Nottingham. The licensing ventures were ultimately unsuccessful, and the company's machine tools were transferred to a factory in Germany.[17] Production of all Oliver typewriters ended in May 1959.[3][4]
Typewriters
Design
The general design of Oliver typewriters remained mostly unchanged throughout the company's history.
The Oliver's typebars are bent in a bow (forming an inverted "U" shape) and rest in "towers" on the sides of the typewriter. This design limited the machine to a three-row QWERTY keyboard as the typebars were stacked such that they grew progressively larger as more were added. The size and usability implications of adding additional keys and thus, more typebars, precluded the addition of a fourth keyboard row dedicated to numbers.[2] Although a four-row prototype was designed in 1922, it was shelved due to the company's financial troubles at that time.[6] The No. 20, No. 21 and portable models produced by the British Oliver Typewriter Company had four-row keyboards.[3][4]
Colour
Oliver typewriters were finished with olive green paint or nickel-plating and white or black keyboards, depending on customer preference. Beginning with model No. 3, machines were painted green except some variants to be exported to warm or damp regions, which were chrome-plated.[20] The colour was changed from green to black on the introduction of model No. 11.[13] Oliver typewriters made for the British war effort were supplied with a "war finish".[17]
Models
United States
The following models were produced in the United States between 1894 and 1928:[13]
Model | Years Produced | Number Produced | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
No. 1 | 1894–1896 | 5,000 | First model; completely nickel-plated; closed "O" in "Oliver" on name plates |
No. 1½ | 1896 | Unknown | Unofficial designation;[13] No. 2 with nickel plating and closed "O" |
No. 2 | 1896–1901 | 30,000 | Improved paper feed; added handles; open "O" (see logo) |
Nos. 3/4 | 1902–1907 | 148,000 | Larger size; colour ribbon |
Nos. 5/6 | 1907–1914 | 311,000 | Oliver name plates removed from sides; backspacer added |
Nos. 7/8 | 1914–1915 | 57,000 | Left margin release moved to right of keyboard |
Nos. 9/10 | 1915–1922 | 449,000 | Right and left shift keys; two-colour ribbon |
Nos. 11/12 | 1922–1928 | 35,000 | Last model produced in the United States; handles removed; black colour |
With the exception of model No. 2, even-numbered models were produced with extra keys (32 versus 28 keys) for sale in countries with accented languages.[citation needed]
United Kingdom
The following models were produced by the British Oliver Typewriter Company between 1930 and 1942:[3][4][13][17]
Model | Years Produced | Number Produced | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
No. 11 | 1928–1931 | Unknown | Stock obtained from American firm and those produced by British Oliver |
Nos. 15/16 | 1928–1947 | > 34,346 | |
No. 20 | 1935–1950 | > 88,600 | Rebranded Halda-Norden standard typewriter |
No. 21 | 1949–1959 | 33,129 | Enclosed typebar "well" |
Portable | 1930–1959 | > 83,500 | Various portable models produced as Types 1–5 |
International
Oliver typewriter designs were licensed for production in several countries. Variants of model No. 3 were produced by The Linotype Company of
Legacy
The 1915 novel Los de Abajo by Mariano Azuela was about the declining value of a pillaged typewriter for Mexican revolutionaries who had to carry the heavy device on their journeys; it featured an Oliver Typewriter model No. 3.[24]
References
- ^ Brockman, Paul (April 9, 1999). "Delavan Smith Papers, 1868-1921". Indiana Historical Society. Retrieved November 11, 2007.
- ^ The Rutherford Journal. Retrieved November 11, 2007.
- ^ a b c d e "Sale to British investors, licensing and production during WWII". AllThingsTypewriter.com. Retrieved August 25, 2021.
- ^ a b c d e "Rebranded Desktops". OliverTypewriters.com. Retrieved August 25, 2021.
- ^ a b Pitman, Isaac (1899). Pitman's Journal of Commercial Education. Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, Ltd., p. 707
- ^ a b c d e Rehr, Darryl (February 1989). "The Unknown Oliver" (PDF). ETCetera. Early Typewriter Collectors Association. pp. 1, 4–5. Retrieved November 11, 2007.
- ^ "United States Patent: 0450107". United States Patent and Trademark Office. Retrieved December 28, 2007.
- ^ Rehr, Darryl (May 1989). "More on Reverend Oliver ..." (PDF). ETCetera. Early Typewriter Collectors Association. pp. 8–9. Retrieved November 11, 2007.
- ^ "Thomas Oliver" (PDF). The New York Times. February 10, 1909. Retrieved November 11, 2007.
- ISBN 0-7385-4080-3.
- JSTOR 23702888– via JSTOR.
- ^ "Chicago Landmarks". City of Chicago Department of Planning and Development, Landmarks Division. Archived from the original on June 30, 2009. Retrieved 2007-12-20.
- ^ a b c d e f Rehr, Darryl (December 1992). "The Beginner's Oliver" (PDF). ETCetera. Early Typewriter Collectors Association. pp. 10–11. Retrieved November 11, 2007.
- ISBN 0-7385-4080-3.
- ISBN 0-7385-4080-3.
- S2CID 154603895– via JSTOR.
- ^ a b c d Beeching, Wilfred A. (1974). Century of the Typewriter. St. Martin's Press. pp. 206–208.
- ^ ISBN 0-04-652004-X.
- ^ ISBN 0-911160-87-6.
- ^ Lewis, John (December 1995). "Not Your Ordinary Oliver" (PDF). ETCetera. Early Typewriter Collectors Association. p. 3. Retrieved February 12, 2008.
- ^ Decker, Don (July 1988). "Oddest of Olivers?" (PDF). ETCetera. Early Typewriter Collectors Association. p. 1. Retrieved February 12, 2008.
- ^ Frey, E. (1926). Luegers Lexikon der gesamten Technik und ihrer Hilfswissenschaften (in German). Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt. p. 117.
- ^ Hammerton, John Alexander (1915). The Real Argentine: Notes and Impressions of a Year in the Argentine and Uruguay. Dodd, Mead and Company. pp. 228–229.
- ^ JSTOR 43264541– via Jstor.
Further reading
- Battle of Detroit : an impartial account of the fierce war waged in the Board of Education by the Typewriter Trust against the Oliver Typewriter, in the year 1899. Linotype Company. 1899. ISBN 9780665101861.
- Polt, Richard (2015). The Typewriter Revolution: A Typist's Companion for the 21st Century. The Countryman Press. ISBN 978-1581573114.
External links
- All Things Typewriter.com – Oliver
- Jett Morton's Collection
- ETCetera – Magazine of the Early Typewriter Collectors Association
- Oliver – The Standard Visible Typewriter
- Oliver Typewriter Brochure ca. 1908