San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1923-09-16
First Woman to Operate
Writing Machine in u. 5.
Rubs Shoulders With
Modern Typists at Golden
Jubilee in Honor of Her
Father. a
By CHARLES FORREST.


Copyright, by the San Antonio Light.
nion, n. Y, Sept. 15.-Mrs. Lii
liam Sholes Fortier of Milwaukee,
first woman in the world to operate
a typewriter, rubbed shoulders here
this morning with her modern sue
cessors at the keyboard-here like
herself for the golden anniversary Of
the great gift with her father,
Christopher Latham Sholes, gave to
the world.
In the half century that has elapsed
since pretty Lillian Sholes seated
herself at the keyboard of the first
practical typewriter she has seen
the then frivolously hailed machine,
revolutionize business and strike the
deciding blow for woman's emancipa'
ton.
What will those behold Of the 1928
crop of 100000 girl typists who are
living when another half century has
rolled by? 1 % - sf--'''-%t-
The writer put the question of B.
L. Winchell, president of the great
est typewriter manufacturing concern
in the world and he confessed him
self stumped. The most far-seeing
typewriter man. of today, he declared
can no more forecast the future de-
velopment of the typewriter than
could the pioneers of 80 years ago
when they finally placed their new
tangled contraDtion on the market
But he has visions, has Mr.. Winchell.
May Use EN- In Schools.
Can you imagine a kindergarten
with row after row Of tots pounding
out their A B C's on tiny writing
machines? Or a first grade class
in public school spelling out labor
iously, but in characters as perfect
as an adult could produce their "cat's
and dogs?" Well that's one of his
visions.
Mr.. Winchell sees the typewriter
as coming aid to education that
will be rivalled, perhaps, only by the
movie. Pedagogists, he says, are
turning more and more to the idea
that the child should be permitted
to acquire his education through
things that excite his interest.
1t shouldn't be hammered into
him. And for exciting interest, the
typewriter-particularly the little
modern portable, is made to order.
And here we find ourselves toying
with the idea Of race of intellectual
supermen and superwomen. Mr..
Wlnchell points to Winifred Sacke-
vile Stoner and Willmore Kendall.
two of the most famous of "child
prodigies" as products, at least in
part, of the early typewriter method
of education.
Can you imagine a world as COM
pletely innocent of the laborious art
of chirography as it was in pre-
historic days, before primitive man
first conceived the notion Of hueing
picture writing into stone?
Well, that's another of Mr.. Win
chelrs visions. In the business
world, penmanship already has been
reduced to the point where q bust.
ness man never picks up a pen ex'
cept to scribble an illegible sigma.
ture.
Mr.. Winchell foresees a day when
that will be about the only use any.
one has for a pen.
Again it is the portable that he
counts on to effect this change. The
tiny machine, further refined, and
perhaps silenced, will supplant' the
ink well and the pen in every home
he thinks.
What else?-who knows? It may
not be beyond the real of possibility
that man soon will be talking into 4
machine combining the qualities o
the dictaphone and the typewrite
and having his remarks appear befor,
him on the typed sheet as fast al
he can utter them. That would BIZ
no greater stride in recording of hu.
man thought than those achieved in
the last half century.
| The history of the typewriter. from
the day that Lillian Sholes sat down
before the keyboard of her fathers
first crude model, has been inextrica-
bly, interviewer with the history of
women. Sholes, its inventor, on his
death bed. was prOuder of what hi
invention had meant to women than
he was of what it had meant to the
business world.
| Happy For WOmen's Sake.
| Father Sholes," said a daughter
in-law, Mrs. c. G. Sholes of Chicago
shortly before he died. what a won
derfgl thing you have done for th,
II ont know about the world. 4.
Tho ipvaOtor ronI;o1