Christopher Latham Sholes
Christopher Latham Sholes (born February 14, 1819 in Mooresburg , Pennsylvania , † February 17, 1890 in Milwaukee , Wisconsin ) was an American printer, journalist and inventor .
Life
Born on a Montour County farm , Sholes worked in Madison as a printer and later editor of Bender's Newspaper . In this city he was a co-founder of the Republican Party of the state of Wisconsin; he had previously been a member of the Free Soil Party . In later years he joined the Liberal Republican Party and most recently the Greenback Party . Sholes served on the State Senate from 1848 to 1849 and from 1856 to 1857 ; between 1852 and 1853 he was a member of the Wisconsin State Assembly . During the Civil War he served as a postman in Milwaukee.
The Kleinsteuber's Machine Shop in Milwaukee was the cradle of the first American typewriter . Together with Carlos Glidden and Samuel W. Soulé , Sholes designed his first typewriter on July 14, 1868 and applied for the patent. This typewriter was reasonably handy and you could write on it as quickly as by hand. It was not the first typewriter in the world - this goes back in part to Peter Mitterhofer (1866) - but the first to use the QWERTY keyboard layout that is still common today; their key arrangement was devised by Sholes. The purpose of the keyboard layout, which deviated from the strictly alphabetical arrangement that had been in effect until then, was to prevent the type lever from jamming by placing letters that often appear together on levers that were as far apart as possible. Around 30 prototypes of this model had been made by 1872. Sholes, Glidden and Soulé couldn't write with ten fingers .
In 1873 Sholes sold his typewriter to the Remington Arms Company in New York . Up until then, this company only produced weapons and sewing machines and Sholes had to laboriously convince him of a new product. After a modification, the typewriter came on the market as Sholes & Glidden Type-Writer on July 1, 1874 and was produced until 1878. The typewriter business was later sold and renamed Remington Rand .
Christopher Latham Sholes died on February 17, 1890 at the age of 71.
Web links
- Christopher Latham Sholes in the database of Find a Grave (English)
- Wisconsin Historical Society
- Weller, Charles E .: The Early History of the Typewriter, 1918
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Sholes, Christopher Latham |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American book printer, journalist, and inventor |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 14, 1819 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | near Mooresburg , Pennsylvania |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 17, 1890 |
| Place of death | Milwaukee , Wisconsin |