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THE TYPEWRITER
Events are never absolute, their outcome depends entirely upon the individual.
Honoré de Balzac
Christopher Sholes was not the first person to invent the typewriterin fact, he was the fifty-second. As early as 1843, patents had been sought and awarded for writing machines. It was in 1866 that Sholes, a printer and newspaperman, was tinkering with a machine to number book pages when a friend remarked that a similar machine could be built to type letters. For seven years, Sholes worked on versions of the machine, but money was running out. Writing letters on the new device, Sholes contacted a Pennsylvania businessman and promoter, James Desmore. Desmore agreed to pay Sholess bills of $600 and provide future financing in exchange for a 25 percent stake in the invention. Sholes agreed, not knowing that the $600 represented all of Desmores liquid assets.
Desmore embraced the new venture with enthusiasm. Realizing that they needed more mechanical expertise and financing, the pair sold rights to the machine to Remington. Sholes took a $12,000 payment for his share, and Desmore negotiated a royalty that would eventually pay him $1.5 million. Remington promoted the machine but was a little off in its initial marketing of the typewriter: Persons traveling by sea can write with it when pen writing is impossible. Finally, the business advantages of typewriting were recognized, and with the help of the YWCA, many thousands of women were trained as typists and gained their first entry into the business world.
CONSIDER THIS: You may not be the first to think of a new idea, but if you keep at it when others quit, you may well be the one who gets the prize.
Submitted by Richard
Events are never absolute, their outcome depends entirely upon the individual.
Honoré de Balzac
Christopher Sholes was not the first person to invent the typewriterin fact, he was the fifty-second. As early as 1843, patents had been sought and awarded for writing machines. It was in 1866 that Sholes, a printer and newspaperman, was tinkering with a machine to number book pages when a friend remarked that a similar machine could be built to type letters. For seven years, Sholes worked on versions of the machine, but money was running out. Writing letters on the new device, Sholes contacted a Pennsylvania businessman and promoter, James Desmore. Desmore agreed to pay Sholess bills of $600 and provide future financing in exchange for a 25 percent stake in the invention. Sholes agreed, not knowing that the $600 represented all of Desmores liquid assets.
Desmore embraced the new venture with enthusiasm. Realizing that they needed more mechanical expertise and financing, the pair sold rights to the machine to Remington. Sholes took a $12,000 payment for his share, and Desmore negotiated a royalty that would eventually pay him $1.5 million. Remington promoted the machine but was a little off in its initial marketing of the typewriter: Persons traveling by sea can write with it when pen writing is impossible. Finally, the business advantages of typewriting were recognized, and with the help of the YWCA, many thousands of women were trained as typists and gained their first entry into the business world.
CONSIDER THIS: You may not be the first to think of a new idea, but if you keep at it when others quit, you may well be the one who gets the prize.
Submitted by Richard
