Worcester, Massachusetts, USA
1840 - Typewriter Invented

The typewriter was invented by Charles Thurber in Worcester.

www.e-referencedesk.com/
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In 1857, when he was still living in Worcester, Massachusetts, [Charles] Thurber patented a “Calligraph”, and then in 1860, after he had moved to Brooklyn, he patented improvements, changing the name of his machine to “Caligraph”. Both of these patents are obviously complete reworkings of Thurber’s 1845 “Mechanical Chirographer”. Thurber, too, knew his ancient languages: he was, after all a Latin teacher for many years. Like calligraphy, chirography comes from the Greek but is derived from Latin. It describes the study of penmanship and handwriting. Thurber titled his 1857 "Calligraph" patent "Penmanship".

It is very interesting that, until now, all typewriter (and other) historians have concentrated on Thurber’s first two patents, for the “Patent Printer” in 1843 and the “Mechanical Chirographer” in 1845, and completely ignored the two later patents. It would seem as if, once Thurber moved from a type plunger machine (the “Patent Printer”) to a machine which reproduced handwriting in a “typewritten” form (the “Mechanical Chirographer”), historians lost interest in him...

ozTypewriter - The World of Typewriters 1714-2014
oztypewriter.blogspot.com/ 2012/ 11/ on-this-day-in-typewriter-history-true.html



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