This was furnished by S.
W. Francis of New York, whose machine, in 1857, bore a ribbon
saturated with ink. None of these machines, however, was a
commercial success. They were regarded merely as the toys of
ingenious men.
The accredited father of the typewriter was a Wisconsin
newspaperman, Christopher Latham Sholes, editor, politician, and
anti-slavery agitator. A strike of his printers led him to
unsuccessful attempts to invent a typesetting machine. He did
succeed, however, in making, in collaboration with another
printer, Samuel W. Soule, a numbering machine, and a friend,
Carlos Glidden, to whom this ingenious contrivance was shown,
suggested a machine to print letters.
The three friends decided to try. None had studied the efforts of
previous experimenters, and they made many errors which might
have been avoided. Gradually, however, the invention took form.
Patents were obtained in June, 1868, and again in July of the
same year, but the machine was neither strong nor trustworthy.
Now appeared James Densmore and bought a share in the machine,
while Soule and Glidden retired. Densmore furnished the funds to
build about thirty models in succession, each a little better
than the preceding. The improved machine was patented in 1871,
and the partners felt that they were ready to begin
manufacturing.
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