A few weeks ago, I changed the header of this blog to an image of a duplicating pen from the Delitiae physico-mathematicae (1651), a three-volume work co-edited by Daniel Schwenter and of course my favorite baroque guy, Georg Philipp Harsdorffer. The design is whimsically simple -- an extension off the end of the pen doubles the writing onto another sheet of paper -- and yet immensely practical, too, in a writing culture that didn't involve mimeographs, carbon copies or Xerox.
(Little noted fact: the Delitiae also contains one of the earliest designs for a fountain pen.)
So anyway, pens -- pencils -- writing implements -- the things that help us write, and the things that help us use the things that help us write. I was poking around Google Patents earlier (my new favorite image bank -- can't beat these early patent designs) and stumbled upon a treasure trove of typewriter cases from the 1880s and 1890s -- of course, just about the time typewriters were starting to be more widely used. They all look more or less like desks, but have been adapted to the tool writers were beginning to use (i.e., the typewriter), much the way my home desk has a roll-out shelf for my keyboard. At the same time, there's so much anxiety over technology in these patents -- they all hide the instrument, pushing it out of view, as if to preserve the appearance of a "traditional" writing space while tucking the "real" writer away in a drawer.
In any case (pun intended!), there's definitely a paper here to be written.
TYPE-WRITER CASE by HARRY D. PURSELL:
TYPE-WRITER CABINET by JACOB KIEFER:
TYPE-WRITER CABINET by SAMUEL L. CONDE:
TYPE-WRITER DESK by OLIVER B. ROWLETT:
TYPE-WRITER ATTACHMENT FOR DESKS by JOHN GRAMELSPACHER:
TYPE-WRITER CABINET by PHILIP E. WHITING:
2 comments:
"they all hide the instrument, pushing it out of view, as if to preserve the appearance of a "traditional" writing space while tucking the "real" writer away in a drawer."
sounds like the (incredible shrinking, ever slimmer) laptop.
Right? Although it is funny how much computers have become a part of an office. I'm always astonished seeing pictures of the White House desk -- with no computer on it! Shocking! What's a desk without a computer?
(It does have a phone, so that communications technology seems to have crossed some kind of rubicon..)
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