Click any typewriter
         to learn its history

This site is devoted to the early history of the portable typewriter, from 1890 to 1930, illustrated by antique typewriters from my collection.

The portable typewriter industry was born at the beginning of the last century. Famous names like Smith-Corona, Remington, Underwood, Royal and Imperial, flourished as globally recognised brands, and collectively the companies sold tens of millions of typewriters all round the world, changing office working habits forever. Yet by the 1990s, all the famous names had been overwhelmed by the computer revolution, and one by one went into liquidation or were bought out.

Today, the famous name typewriter firms like Remington and Underwood are all gone forever. Yet curiously, the typewriters they made, their company logos, their instruction booklets, their magazine adverts, and even the disciplines they introduced to office life, remain behind like archaeological finds from a lost world. This site is my personal tribute to those companies, their entrepreneurs, inventors, engineers and salespeople, and my way of celebrating the passing of an invention that was an important part of my life as a writer and journalist.

Richard Milton

To explore the lost world of the portable typewriter, click any of the 630-plus typewriter images shown on this site.

The Beginning . . .      . This is the prototype of the first commercially successful portable typewriter, invented in 1904.  It was thought to be lost for 100 years but was recently found again through engineering detective work.  To read the story of its rediscovery.         Click here »»»

. . . And the End    . The era of the mechanical portable typewriter came to an end in 1957 when Smith-Corona launched the world's first electric portable machine.  To read about this revolutionary typewriter and its impact.  Click here »»»

In the decades between these two machines was a brief, glorious and crazy age in which some of the world's biggest corporations tried to persuade us to buy into their way of printing letters on the page.  Find out how successful they were by clicking on the  famous
 ««««««  brands shown at left and right.  »»»»»»

A Note on Restoration . . . The typewriters shown on the pages of this site were restored to working order and  display condition after years of neglect -- many were rescued in a derelict state from junk shops.  Learn the secrets of restoring antique typewriters.        Click here »»»

       
    Click any typewriter
      to learn its history