All About Inventions and Discoveries
The Romance of modern scientific and mechanical Achievements

Romance of the Typewriter 189 ingenuity of Lucien Crandall, who introduced the carriage-shifting device, which paved the way for the invention of Byron A. Brooks, a professor of higher mathematics, who conceived the idea of mounting the upper and lower case form of each character upon the one lever, either of which could be brought into use by the manipulation of a shift-key. When the two characters of each letter were introduced the machine began to appeal more strongly to the public. However, the early days of the typewriter were extremely chequered, and the young invention experi- enced many vicissitudes. At times it seemed as if it would inevitably succumb to public apathy. Even Yost’s commercial persuasiveness failed. Successive managements of the selling agency which was founded to dispose of the machines, under varying styles of Densmore and Yost, could not make headway with it. Densmore was the first to retire from the field. Ultimately Yost, who clung to the invention, asso- ciated himself with two other partners, D. R. Locke and J. H. Bates, the firm being known as Locke, Yost and Bates. Even this trio could not force the machine upon the commercial world. Some important factor was missing—either imagination, skill, or art—in salesman- ship. The one thing which did develop was the accumulation of debt, which presently reached such a figure as to render all likelihood of retrieving the money sunk in the enterprise impossible, much less the winning of a fortune. The financial side of the problem was investigated thoroughly. There was a critical meeting, at which the whole situation was threshed out.