in 1870, the young women's Christian association of the state of new york usa announced an office training course to be given to eight handpicked young ladies, the ladies were to be thought shorthand and to operate a new machine known as mechanical typewriter. An important qualification for the applicants was that they should be physically strong for it was thought that an average woman could hardly operate the machine
The training course was laughed at first because women in business attire were unheard of at that time. Business letters were handled by male clerks who laboriously copied letters in long hand in copperplate script at the rate of 15 to 10 words per minute
After six months with the machine the woman trainees landed jobs at $8.00 a week a favorable contrast to the then women's current wages of$3.00 to $4 a week in the mills and factories
Today, millions all over the world are operating the machine in various business offices. The day of the long hand writers has ended. The age of the typewriter is on
The first writing machine, a clumsy one was made by three Americans, sholes came up with the first really all around machine it looked like sewing machine with cast iron stand and a foot treadle. Sholes and his financer thought it best to engage in a bigger company to produce manufacture and sell their invention. They took tha machine to E. Remington & sons of New York, who saw the future in the apparatus, and agreed to take over the production and sale the machine. With refinements and improvements, the Remington model. no21 appeared in 1874
at first businessman stubbornly rejected the innovation. clerks even threatened to walk out in protest if the device were brought to the offices on the belief that the machine would rob them of their job.
The introduction of the touch system supplantingg the two finger technique gave the typewriter is greater boost. the new system boosted also the sale of the typewriter, and soon more and more women began to break the wall that kept females in business world
The inventor of the typewriter died a poor man. His total proceeds from patent rughts amounted only $12,000. But he lived long enough to see the transformation his machine had brought about in the business world
What's the lesson to be learned?
