Keyboard Builders' Digest / History
World I: an index typewriter
The World Typewriter is an index typewriter from the 1880s. Posted by Sup-Bird.
Published May 8, 2021
The World Typewriter, manufactured by World Typewriter Company, Maine, USA, was a cheap alternative to the complicated writing machines that were on the market in the 1880s. The World typewriter (marketed in 1886) used a rubber sheet to stamp the letters onto the paper.
The original World of 1885 was a caps only typewriter. The World 2 wrote upper and lower case.
The machine worked as simple as the other index writers. The user would point at a letter with the swinging index pointer and then stamp the letter, using the keys on the left.
According to the Virtual Typewriter Museum, it is hard to say what the quality of the work of these cheap typewriters was because the rubber type is usually missing, or at best rock hard.
In the case of the World Typewriter however, we do have a sample of the original writing. On Nov 21, 1887, one Sally used a World advertising flyer to write a letter to her 'Dear friend', it includes several comments about the use of the World typewriter (see picture).
Published on Sat 8th May 2021. Featured in KBD #25 (source).
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