more at
NEW VERSION in one piece instead of multiple parts:
“Demonstrates correct posture for typing; proper fingering of the keys; use of the shift key, back spacer, tabulator, carriage return lever, etc.; and differences between manual and electric typewriters.” Opens with a display of historic typewriters from the Smithsonian, including the 1829 Burt Typographer, the Sholes and Glidden Type-Writer made by Remington in 1873, and the first Corona portable.
US Navy Training Film MN-1512a
Public domain film from the Library of Congress Prelinger Archive, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and mild video noise reduction applied.
The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and equalization.
part 2:
…The basic technique stands in contrast to hunt and peck typing as the typist keeps their eyes on the source copy at all times. Touch typing also involves the use of the home row method, where typists keep their wrists up, rather than resting them on a desk or keyboard as this can cause carpal tunnel syndrome. To avoid this, typists using this method should sit up tall leaning slightly forward from the waist, place their feet flat on the floor in front of them with one foot slightly in front of the other, keeping their elbows close to their sides with forearms slanted slightly upward to the keyboard, fingers should be curved slightly resting on the home row…
The fastest typing speed ever, 216 words per minute, was achieved by Stella Pajunas-Garnand from Chicago in 1946 in one minute on an IBM electric. As of 2005, writer Barbara Blackburn was the fastest English language typist in the world, according to The Guinness Book of World Records. Using the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard, she has maintained 150 wpm for 50 minutes, and 170 wpm for shorter periods. She has been clocked at a peak speed of 212 wpm. Blackburn, who failed her QWERTY typing class in high school, first encountered the Dvorak keyboard in 1938, quickly learned to achieve very high speeds, and occasionally toured giving speed-typing demonstrations during her secretarial career…
…In 1714, Henry Mill obtained a patent in Britain for a machine that, from the patent, appears to have been similar to a typewriter. The patent shows that this machine was actually created..
Italian Pellegrino Turri invented a typewriter in 1808. He also invented carbon paper to provide the ink for his machine. Many early machines, including Turri’s, were developed to enable the blind to write.
In 1829, William Austin Burt patented a machine called the “Typographer” which, in common with many other early machines, is listed as the “first typewriter”. The Science Museum (London) describes it merely as “the first writing mechanism whose invention was documented,” but even that claim may be excessive, since Turri’s invention pre-dates it. Even in the hands of its inventor, this machine was slower than handwriting…
By the mid-19th century, the increasing pace of business communication had created a need for mechanization of the writing process. Stenographers and telegraphers could take down information at rates up to 130 words per minute, whereas a writer with a pen was limited to a maximum of 30 words per minute (the 1853 speed record).
From 1829 to 1870, many printing or typing machines were patented by inventors in Europe and America, but none went into commercial production…
The first typewriter to be commercially successful was invented in 1868 by Christopher Latham Sholes, Carlos Glidden and Samuel W. Soule in Milwaukee, Wisconsin… The working prototype was made by the machinist Matthias Schwalbach. The patent (US 79,265) was sold for $12,000 to Densmore and Yost, who made an agreement with E. Remington and Sons (then famous as a manufacturer of sewing machines) to commercialize the machine as the Sholes and Glidden Type-Writer. This was the origin of the term typewriter. Remington began production of its first typewriter on March 1, 1873, in Ilion, New York. It had a QWERTY keyboard layout, which because of the machine’s success, was slowly adopted by other typewriter manufacturers…
Because the type bars of this typewriter strike upwards, the typist could not have seen characters as they were typed… The difficulty with any other arrangement was ensuring the type bars fell back into place reliably when the key was released. This was eventually achieved with various ingenious mechanical designs and so-called “visible typewriters”, such as the Oliver, were introduced in 1895. The older style continued in production to as late as 1915…
