by Christina Teskey and Mike Eggermont
Introduction
The dramatic cultural impact of word processing was preceded by a sequential series of inventions that each created small revolutions in the written word. Various advancements in hand writing took this skill through linguistic stages where the writing moved from representing concepts to representing sounds. The development of the printing press made duplication affordable, but the typewriter made elements of this technology accessible to individual users. A review of the development of handwriting and the first commercially available typewriter shows their cultural impact, which reached far beyond the written word.
Handwriting
The history of handwriting is as old as the first deliberate marks made on a stone, bone or piece of bark. Writing developed through several stages involving cuneiform, hieroglyphics and phonetization. However, the handwriting that we are familiar with today is based on an alphabet initially used by the Phoenicians before 1,000 BC and further developed by the Greeks. The Phoenicians had 24 letters in their alphabet and wrote from right to left. The Greeks added letters to the alphabet and initially wrote in a boustrophedon manner (back and forth like a farmer ploughing his field), but then settled on writing from left to right. The Romans took the Greek alphabet and adapted it to the Latin language, and this form of writing is still with us today.
Throughout history various letter forms have been used at different times and in different areas. From the formal Roman square capitals, a faster form of writing called Rustica was used for book writing. At the same time, informal scripts for personal messages also developed which showed cursive writing. Around the 4th century AD, a new form of writing, Uncials, was being used to copy the vast amount of Christian text that was being distributed throughout Europe after the Roman Empire adopted Christianity. Soon after, Half-Uncials also were in use, and these were the precursors to our lower-case letters. In the 8th century, Charlemagne united many of the countries in Europe and introduced a new script called Carolingian, which became the book hand for the next two or three centuries. During the Middle Ages Black Letter or Gothic became popular, and this was the first time that capitals and lower-case letters were used with the same script. During the Renaissance, a revived interest in writing produced the Italic script and one developed from the Carolingian minuscule. After the 16th century a cursive form of writing called copperplate or Round hand was developed by imitating a method of printing from engraved copper plates. When steel pens started to be produced in great quantities in the mid-1800s, writing became almost a necessity. Lawther and Lawther (1987) note the following:
The Industrial Revolution brought about more and more clerical jobs and similar posts where speed and neatness in writing counted for more than ornamentation. Schools taught formal copperplate for the new pens, and for the first time generations of children grew up regarding the ability to write as the norm rather than as something for the odd few.
After the advent of printing, when people no longer had to handwrite books, handwriting came to be seen as a very personal expression. “Simply put, script gained properties of embodying the self.” (Bayer, 2000) The Victorian era brought great change, and Bayer, in a review of Tamara Plakins Thornton’s book, “Handwriting in America: A Cultural History”, summarizes Thornton’s description of how the changes were reflected in people’s handwriting:
Whereas varying scripts had served to reflect one’s identity and social status with, for example, women’s use of an Italian hand symbolizing “physical delicacy, intellectual inferiority, and constitutional flightiness” and men’s hands the “nonchalant manner of the aristocrat,” political, economic, and social change in the nineteenth century transformed handwriting into an instrument of Victorian character formation where order and conformity were made paramount. Now beautiful hand signalled self-discipline, the exercise of the will over the body, and the embodiment of restraint and freedom associated with the world of a producer society and the work of men. (Bayer, 2000)
Handwriting is still seen by many as a personal expression, preferable to any mechanically produced text, but this attitude may be changing. Tillotson (2005) notes, “Within my lifetime it was considered rude to compose a personal letter on a typewriter, which should be reserved for business affairs. Now Grandmas get emails, and the lack of personal touch in the handwriting is compensated by the jpegs of the grandchildren and the dog.”
While handwriting has persisted throughout the ages, some have called for an end to the teaching of cursive writing (leaving only printing) in the elementary school curriculum. Wallace and Schomer (1994) cite many reasons, noting that schools have added material to the curriculum without extending the day, and technology has also reduced the need for cursive writing in business. Other researchers have noted that the need to handwrite may prevent children from being able to compose text due to the demands that handwriting places on them (Graham & Weintraub, 1996, as quoted in Jones & Christensen).
Typewriter
Prior to the 19 th Century many inventors experimented with the concept of writing machines. More than 100 prototype models were created and several received patents and sold commercially, albeit without much success. The idea behind the typewriter was based on the movable type concept developed by Johann Gutenberg. In 1714 a patent was granted to Henry Mill in England for a writing machine. (“Typewriter”, 2005) In 1829 William Burt from Detroit, MI patented a writing machine with characters positioned in a rotating frame. The machine was functional but difficult to use.
Credit for the first typewriter often goes to the first commercially successful machine. In 1867 Christopher Sholes and Carlos Glidden from Milwaukee, Wisconsin patented a prototype typewriter which is currently housed at the Smithsonian Institution. The machine was large and was never successfully marketed, but the investors sold the patents to the machine to two entrepreneurs who turned around to work with Remington & Sons Co. They produced the Sholes and Glidden Typewriter in 1873. (“Typewriter History at a Glance”)
Due to the slow response of the type bars and the tendency to jam, keys were spaced in a manner that purposely slowed the operator down. At this point a two fingered hunt-and-peck method was still used, and Sholes did not anticipate that typists would eventually be faster than handwriting speed of 20 words per minute. The QWERTY remained in use despite attempts to produce more efficient key combinations by inventors like Dvorak. (Cassingham, 1986)
The typewriter has been credited with a technological and societal revolution. Productivity of workers was greatly increased, problems of writer’s cramp were eliminated (unfortunately to be replaced by tendonitis). Furthermore the typewriter has been credited with allowing women to enter the previously male dominated office work force in large numbers. (Hedge, 2005)
While at times feminist research has revealed examples of new technologies which are accompanied by the exclusion of women from the newly created jobs, and the subsequent reclassification of female labour as unskilled. The typewriter helped feminize secretarial work and increase the number of women in the office workplace. (Scrole cited in Mitter & Rowbotham, 1995)
In 1923 a publication by the Herkimer County Historical Society contained a photo of Christopher Sholes and labelled him “the savior of women”. The typewriter is credited in this account with giving women jobs in the office and an opportunity to work as freelance typists in offices where fulltime use for the machine was not feasible yet. This resulted in giving women economic independence, an increasingly equal position in the workforce and a voice in the office and the business world. (“Women at Work”)
The same publication also shows a series of postcards from around 1910 establishing the stereotype of the boss cheating his wife with the secretary. (Herkimer County Historical Society cited in “Women at Work”)
A book review on the Temple University website states that:
In most societies, a sexual division of labor is usually regarded as "natural." Thus, in the United States today not only does it seem proper that woman’s place is at the stove, or with the children, or in the classroom, or at the typewriter, but it also seems "natural" it was always so. (“ Woman’s Place Is at the Typewriter”)
The introduction is about Margery Davies’ “Office Work and Office Workers, 1970-1930”. In her book, Davies shows that work that was once performed by men became redefined and devalued as women’s work. The original male clerical workers before 1900 performed a number of tasks that were integrally tied to the business. These workers learned many aspects of the business. By 1930 Davies finds that a new class of worker had emerged, the “Secretarial Proletariat”. (Davies cited in “ Woman’s Place Is at the Typewriter”) This new labour group performed very specific functions and did not have entry into the newly emerging middle management. The role of the secretary became departmentalized and control over work or the business was eliminated. While women entered the office workforce, the jobs they filled degraded as men disappeared and were promoted.
Conclusion
Frost, in Future of the book.com, noted of reading: “The reading modes overlay and merge with each other. These are the modes of orality, writing, print and electronic transmission. They all emerge, persist and influence each other in a continuing, timeless dynamic of the storage and transmission of knowledge.” In the same way, handwriting has persisted throughout history as the premier way of manually expressing one's thoughts and feelings. With the advent of the typewriter, a new way of expressing oneself in print was born, but it (and its descendant, the personal computer) have not yet been able to replace handwriting as a means of self-expression.
Links to Related Articles by ETEC 540 students
For another perspective on this topic, see Caroline Adala's Handwriting to Typewriting: The Phenomenology of Handwriting.
Rebecca Tang and Angela Schwartz wrote about the history of Pen and Paper.
References
Ament, P. (2005). Typewriter. The Great Idea Finder (Website). Retrieved October 17, 2005, from http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/story097.htm
Bigler, J. (2003). The Dvorak Keyboard. Retrieved October 14, 2005, from http://www.mit.edu:8001/people/jcb/Dvorak/
Bigler, J. (2001). Early Typewriter History. Retrieved October 14, 2005, from http://www.mit.edu/~jcb/Dvorak/history.html
Calligraphy. Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia (online). Retrieved October 20, 2005, from http://search.epnet.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=funk&an=CA012600
Frost, Gary. (2000). Futureofthebook.com (website). Retrieved October 15, 2005, from http://www.futureofthebook.com/storiestoc/scroll
Hedge, A. (2005) Typewriter sparked workplace revolution. Ergonomics in the News (website). Retrieved October 15, 2005, from http://www.usernomics.com/news/2005/05/typewriter-sparked-workplace.html
Jones, D. & Christensen, C. Relationship Between Automaticity in Handwriting and Students' Ability to Generate Written Text. Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol. 91(1), March 1999. pp. 44-49.
Lawther, G. & Lawther, C. (1987). You can learn lettering and calligraphy. Cincinnati, OH: North Light Books.
Paleography. Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopediea (online). Retrieved October 21, 2005, from http://search.epnet.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=funk&an=PA005700
Remington Typewriter, about 1875. (2001). Smithsonian Institution Press website. Retrieved October 17, 2005, from http://smithsonianlegacies.si.edu/objectdescription.cfm?id=251
Robert, P. (ed.). History: Women at work. (2005). The Virtual Typewriter Museum website. Retrieved October 14, 2005, from http://www.typewritermuseum.org/history/social_relev.html
Rowbotham, S. (1995). The impact of technology. In Mitter, S. & Rowbotham, S. (Eds.), Women encounter technology: Changing patterns of employment in the third world. London: Routledge. Electronic version retrieved from http://www.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/uu37we/uu37we09.htm
Tillotson, D. (2005). The written word. Medieval writing: History, heritage and datasource (Website). Retrieved October 16, 2005, from www.medievalwriting.50megs.com/
Typewriter history at a glance. (2003). Retrieved October 17, 2005, from http://www.mytypewriter.com/generic.html?pid=21
Wallace, R. & Schomer, J. (1994). Simplifying handwriting instruction for the 21st century. Education. Spring 94 Vol 114 Issue 3, p. 413, 5 p. Retrieved October 20, 2005 from http://search.epnet.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&an=9407110609
Woman’s place is at the typewriter (Book review). (2005). Temple University Press website. Retrieved October 18, 2005, from http://www.temple.edu/tempress/titles/273_reg.html