Farewell to Manual Typewriters

[Laura L. Cooper]

In addition to books from my childhood, the reluctant typewriter in the basement of my family home drew me to writing. The gummy keys stuck, forcing me to use several fingers and a hearty jab to generate each key stroke. I worked long hours to create something that looked like the “real” writing I saw in books.

 

Apparently typewriters continued to be viewed as useful machines in India until recently, but no longer. The last manual typewriter factory in the world closed. Godrej and Boyce ceased production of typewriters in 2009. Now their inventory in India is down to several hundred Arabic models.

 

Of course, distraught fans can still run to eBay or Amazon.com to purchase an electric machine. You may want to capture a huge inventory of ribbon up front; I can't imagine supplies will be available forever.

 

Personally, I've brought my knowledge of the QWERTY keyboard to computers. Love never having to retype an entire manuscript because I'm adding one paragraph to page one. Yet, I will always be nostalgic for childhood days when I read books by authors like Laura Ingalls Wilder (Little House series), Beverly Cleary (Ramona series), and Wilson Rawls (Where the Red Fern Grows) and then headed to the desk in the basement. I sat in front of the manual monolith and physically pounded out my first stories until my fingers ached.

 

Now that writing is physically less demanding...I really should be more productive.

 

 

See related article on the last typewriter factory from THE ATLANTIC: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/04/last-typewrit...

 

If you'd like a history of typewriters...some none of us can remember, start with “The First Typewriter” by Darryl Rehr: http://home.earthlink.net/~dcrehr/firsttw.html

 

Or go to “The Classic Typewriter Page:” http://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/tw-history.html

 

 

[Laura L. Cooper]

A few of your early relationships with typewriters sound unhealthy.  LOL.