Typewriters and commerce in Scotland, 1870s-1920s
Lead Research Organisation:
University of St Andrews
Department Name: History
Abstract
The choices faced by ICT consumers today depend on the standardization of the alpha-numeric keyboard on typewriters a century ago. This project will use office technology collections in Edinburgh and Glasgow to understand how consumers used and chose between the many models of typewriters on offer in the first 50 years of commercial availability.
It will use the machines themselves alongside auxiliary devices and archives to analyse different features of competing models, assessing how they were marketed; how certain features became more significant and standardized over time; and how users evaluated and valued the peculiarities of one model over another.
It will use the machines themselves alongside auxiliary devices and archives to analyse different features of competing models, assessing how they were marketed; how certain features became more significant and standardized over time; and how users evaluated and valued the peculiarities of one model over another.
People |
ORCID iD |
| Aileen Fyfe (Primary Supervisor) | |
| James Inglis (Student) |
| Title | Blog Post for National Museums Scotland |
| Description | Blog post for the National Museum of Scotland on an area of my research, which also helped to promote the Museum's typewriter collection. |
| Type Of Art | Creative Writing |
| Year Produced | 2018 |
| Impact | This blog has been useful for promoting the Museum's typewriter collection, particularly in the run up to the Typewriter Revolution exhibition which I am currently working on. Off the back of this blog I was asked to write a similar blog post for the British Library. |
| URL | https://blog.nms.ac.uk/2018/08/11/re-typing-history-the-sholes-glidden-typewriter-and-the-qwerty-key... |
| Title | Blog post for British Library: 'Perfecting the Writing Machine: Blind and Visible Writing Typewriters' |
| Description | Blog post for the British Library to coincide with their typewriter exhibits within their temporary exhibition 'Writing: Making Your Mark'. |
| Type Of Art | Creative Writing |
| Year Produced | 2019 |
| Impact | This blog post not only supported the British Library's exhibition but helped to promote the typewriter collections held by the National Museum of Scotland. Off the back of this blog I have been asked by a typewriter historian for more information on the Remington Model 2 typewriter featured in this blog. |
| URL | https://blogs.bl.uk/science/2019/05/perfecting-the-writing-machine-blind-and-visible-writing-typewri... |
| Title | The Typewriter Revolution (exhibition National Museums Scotland), July 2020 to February 2021 |
| Description | Typewriter Revolution is a temporary exhibition that I am currently working on at the National Museum of Scotland. The exhibition started with a proposal that I submitted to the Museum which was subsequently approved. At the moment, I am using my student development fund for a 6 month placement at NMS to coordinate the exhibition which will open in July 2020. |
| Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
| Year Produced | 2020 |
| Impact | The full range of impacts will not be known until the launch of the exhibition in July 2020. However, already I have been working on photographing NMS' typewriter collection to a professional standard. These have been uploaded to NMS' object database and will subsequently appear on the online catalogue which is regular accessed by the general public. Planned public engagement events for this exhibition include a talk to the Friends of the Museum as well as an engagement activity, involving typewriters, for individuals suffering from dementia. |
| Title | Spreadsheets for typewriter businesses recorded in Scottish Post Office directories, 1875-1930 |
| Description | These data record information on typewriter businesses recorded in the Post Office directories for Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee and Aberdeen between 1875 and 1930. For the years 1875-1911 I used the digitized versions of the Scottish Post Office directories provided by the National Library of Scotland. From 1912 onwards I used hard copies of the post office directories held at the NLS. For each year the number of businesses involved in the typewriter trade is recorded. For each businesses information such as: address, name of manager(s), typewriters sold is recorded. The result is a complete overview of the growth of the typewriter trade in Scotland from the 1880s onwards. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2019 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | These datasets have allowed me to identify the take off in Scotland's typewriter trade which occurred in the 1890s. The research has also helped me to identify five sectors within Scotland's typewriter trade: retail, typewriting office, training schools, supply specialists and typewriter repairers. These sectors will form the chapter structure of my thesis. Some of these sectors, such as typewriting office, were extremely important to Scotland typewriter trade, but have received barely any coverage in the historiography of typewriters and clerical work. The datasets, recorded in excel, have allowed me to produce graphs and charts showing the growth and changing nature of Scotland's typewriter trade overtime. By recording the addresses of typewriter businesses, I have been able to analyse the geographical spread of typewriter businesses in Scotland over the period. |
| Description | Partnership between the University of St Andrews and National Museums Scotland |
| Organisation | National Museums Scotland |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | Over the course of my research I have committed to working one day per week at the National Museum of Scotland, to help with curatorial work within the Science and Technology department. This work has included advising on and completing object acquisitions to the Museum, presenting at Museum conferences, taking part in visitor engagement activities, managing and updating the museum's catalogue, and adding to the knowledge of the museum's collections, specifically relating to my speciality in office technologies. |
| Collaborator Contribution | My partners have helped develop my professional skills within the Museum sector. This has been achieved through one on one support from staff as well as by paying for me to attend training sessions relating to Museum work. National Museums Scotland have also hosted a academic conference that I helped to organise. NMS has also funded my travel to and attendance at academic conferences in the UK and abroad. |
| Impact | A major outcome of this partnership is an exhibition on the history of typewriters opening in July 2020. This exhibition will give the opportunity for the public to see an important part of Scotland's national collection of office technologies. Other outcomes of this event will be public talks, online publications, and a better and lasting knowledge of NMS' collections. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Academic Conferences at the British Society for the History of Science (post graduate conference) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | I presented at the 2018 and 2019 British Society for the History of Science (post graduate conference). In these papers I presented my research to a audience composed of postgraduate students and professional academics. In these talks I was also able to promote the value of my collaborative nature of my award from AHRC. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018,2019 |
| Description | Typewriter Science Cart for National Museums Scotland, National Mining Museum of Scotland and University of St Andrews Museums |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The intended purpose of the activity was to introduce museum visitors, young and old, to the use of and history of typewriters. For younger visitors there was the opportunity to use typewriters which were purchased as object handling collections by my project partner National Museums Scotland. For older visitors, they also had the opportunity to use the typewriters on show, but they also were interested in hearing about my research into the typewriter trade in Scotland, as well as sharing their own experiences of using typewriters for work and leisure. These were valuable events as they allowed younger persons unfamiliar with typewriters to see how these technologies operated first hand. They were also important for older visitors, who while familiar with typewriters, were not necessarily familiar with the complex history of the technical and social development of the typewriter in Scotland at the turn of the 20th century. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018,2019,2020 |