Typing is the process of writing or inputting text by pressing keys on a typewriter, computer keyboard, mobile phone, or calculator. It can be distinguished from other means of text input, such as handwriting and speech recognition. Text can be in the form of letters, numbers and other symbols. The world's first typist was Lillian Sholes from Wisconsin in the United States, the daughter of Christopher Sholes, who invented the first practical typewriter.
Civilian Conservation Corps typing class, 1933
War correspondent typing his dispatch in a wood outside Arnhem, 1944
A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical machine for typing characters. Typically, a typewriter has an array of keys, and each one causes a different single character to be produced on paper by striking an inked ribbon selectively against the paper with a type element. At the end of the nineteenth century, the term 'typewriter' was also applied to a person who used such a device.
Mechanical desktop typewriters, such as this Underwood Typewriter, were long-time standards in government agencies, newsrooms, and offices.
Peter Mitterhofer's typewriter prototype (1864)
The 1969 Olivetti Valentine typewriter, featured in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, and Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York; London's Design Museum and Victoria and Albert Museum.
An Elliott-Fisher book typewriter on display at the Historic Archive and Museum of Mining in Pachuca, Mexico
