A short history of typing
How the typewriter, the QWERTY layout and touch typing came to be, and why we still use them.
The keyboard you type on today is the descendant of a machine designed in the 1860s and 1870s. Many of its features, including the order of the letters, come from that time.
The first commercial typewriter
Christopher Latham Sholes and his collaborators in Milwaukee developed a typewriter that the gun maker E. Remington and Sons began producing in 1873 and selling in 1874. It typed only capital letters, and the typist could not see the text while typing. It also introduced the QWERTY arrangement of letters that most keyboards still use.
Why QWERTY?
A popular story says the letters were arranged to slow typists down. A more widely accepted explanation is that the order was refined to reduce jams between type bars that were often used one after the other, and that it was shaped by the needs of early users such as telegraph operators. Once typists had learned it, the layout stuck.
Touch typing
Early typists used a few fingers and looked at the keys. In the 1880s, typing teachers began promoting the use of all ten fingers without looking. A widely reported contest in 1888, in which Frank McGurrin, who typed by touch, beat a rival who used a different method and machine, helped popularise the idea. By the early twentieth century, touch typing was the standard taught in typing schools.
New layouts
In 1936 August Dvorak and William Dealey patented a layout designed to reduce finger movement. It gained a loyal following but never replaced QWERTY. In 2006 the Colemak layout offered a smaller change from QWERTY. National layouts such as AZERTY and QWERTZ adapted the design for other languages.
From typewriters to computers
Electric typewriters in the twentieth century made typing faster and lighter, and computer keyboards carried the layout into offices and homes. Today most people type on laptops, desktop keyboards and phone screens, yet the skills taught a century ago, home row, all ten fingers and eyes on the text, are still the fastest way to type. You can learn them with the free typing lessons.