History of the Typewriter

— 17 — CHAPTER I. TYPEWRITING may be clearly and accurately defined as the art of printing characters on paper, one by one, by mechanical means. If this designation be accepted, it is clear that the art stands midway between those of writing and printing, by reducing the manual exertion necessary for the one, and obviating the necessity for heavy and costly machinery on the other hand. It is clear that very early in history efforts were made to reduce the tediousness of manual copying. Signatures were engraved on seals, and inscriptions made on wooden blocks, which, when smeared with suitable colouring matter, could be transferred to paper. Nothing of a tangible nature was, however, evolved until the seventeenth century, when patent rights were granted for a writing engine, the effect of which was to enable several copies of one writing to be made simul- taneously. In the year 1714, Henry Mill, the engineer to the New River Water Co., obtained a patent for a machine which he stated he “ had brought to perfection at great paines and expence,” and the object of which was to impress letters on paper as in writing. No drawings or other particulars of this instrument are, however, available, and as suggested by the author of the “ Cantor ” Lectures on Typewriting Machines, it is possible that the nature of his duties as engineer to the company would hardly leave the inventor much time to indulge in the elaboration of his ideas. There are evidences that the subject of mechanical writing occupied the minds of many people in France, and certain fragmentary records remain which clearly indicate efforts having been put forth in this direction. An embossing machine was invented in France in 1784, and, in the United States in 1829, a Mr. Burt took out the first American patent of which there is any record, 2