Christopher Sholes: Originator of the QWERTY Typewriter

Born in Pennsylvania, Christopher Latham Sholes (1819–1890) soon followed in the family footsteps of the printing industry. When he was a teenager, his family moved to Danville, Pennsylvania, where he became a printer’s devil (an apprentice at a print shop). At age 18, he moved to Green Bay, Wisconsin and joined his brothers who published the Wisconsin Democrat newspaper.
Sholes proved to be a hard worker, and quite industrious himself. By 1839, shortly after he had arrived in Wisconsin, he became editor of the Madison Enquirer and the following year launched his own newspaper in Kenosha, Wisconsin, which he called the Southport Telegraph (later renamed the Kenosha Telegraph). He remained the publisher and editor of the Southport (Kenosha) Telegraph for 17 years. But his passion for journalism didn’t stop at writing, editing, and printing the news. Sholes desired to make writing process easier.
He became a Wisconsin state senator during the Free Soil Party’s inaugural year from 1848 to 1849. Three years later, from 1852 to 1853, Sholes served as a Wisconsin state assemblyman. He returned to the state senate from 1856 to 1857 to serve as a Republican. He was a strong supporter of Abraham Lincoln, and during the Civil War, while in his 40s, he served as the postmaster for Milwaukee.
Sholes contacted another colleague, James Denmore, an inventor turned venture capitalist, to request financial assistance in order to market the creation. Denmore was excited about the opportunity until he saw Sholes’s typewriter. It would not do. Denmore had about a dozen of these typewriters built so he could  observe what worked and what didn’t.
Denmore believed in the idea, but it was not yet marketable.  There were still issues that needed resolving. Over the course of several years, he continued to back the project financially, while Sholes, Glidden, and Soule perfected the writing machine.
Denmore presented one of the typewriters to Remington Arms, a company that had made its money manufacturing weapons during the Civil War. Remington Arms now manufactured sewing machines. The company agreed to manufacture the typewriter, but there proved to still be several kinks that ultimately slowed sales.
Sholes began reorganizing the layout of the keys. He ultimately developed what became known as the QWERTY keyboard, which is in reference to the first six letters on the top left of the keyboard. The QWERTY solution was to mix up the arms’ locations on the keyboard (for example, S and T are separated). The reorganization proved successful and remains the way all keyboards—from typewriters to laptops—are organized.
In 1874, Mark Twain was the most famous American to purchase the Sholes & Glidden Type Writer. Sales, however, were still relatively slow, but they soon took off as the Twain-termed Gilded Age continued. Sholes continued tinkering with his creation to make it easier and more efficient to use.