IBM Electromatic
1935 · Electric Typewriter · Work 559 of 1,871
An electric typewriter with a motor housing behind the platen, a black frame with rounded edges, four rows of keys, each key cap bearing a single capital letter, a sheet of paper in the platen carrying an even line of type of uniform weight from edge to edge, a mains cord trailing off the desk to a wall socket, the machine on a steel-framed desk beneath a tall window on the left, an electric desk lamp with a green glass shade beside it, a wire tray and plain papers, steel filing cabinets and flat desks running back into the dim office with dark unlit figures at the far desks.
- What it was used for
- The IBM Electromatic was an electric typewriter for the office: a motor drove the type bars, the finger only released them. The Smithsonian National Museum of American History gives the advantage: "each type bar hit the paper with the same force, and that force was more powerful than manual typewriters" — which made it possible to produce several carbon copies at once, the point that mattered in business. IBM had not developed the machine; it bought Electromatic Typewriters, Inc. in 1933, along with its plant in Rochester, New York, and after improvements introduced the Model 01 in 1935. The company then built typewriters until 1990.
- What was new
- The innovation of electric typewriters, on the Smithsonian's account, was the even force: because every type bar struck equally hard, the look of the page no longer depended on the hand, and the stack of carbons could be deeper than a hand could have driven through. The gain the museum names is therefore not speed but duplication in a single pass. The barb: the machine with which IBM entered the typewriter business was bought in — and its advantage in business was the number of copies one letter produced at once. The easier typing became, the more paper every transaction left behind.
What the sources leave open: The dating is not consistent: the Smithsonian gives the acquisition as 1933 and the Model 01 as 1935, while The Henry Ford catalogues its example as "IBM Electromatic Typewriter, Model No. 1, 1933". The Smithsonian's own example is dated "ca 1948". Neither source names electric typewriters on the market before the Electromatic.