The 1878 Remington 2 Set The Standard For Typewriter Design

By Dave Knight

The Remington Standard 2 typewriter first made in 1878 was the successor to the “Sholes & Glidden Type Writer”. The Sholes & Glidden machine was produced in the Remington factory and is regarded as the first Remington typewriter, the Remington 1. The Remington 2 was the first model to be sold in substantial quantities though and had a number of improvements over the Sholes & Glidden design. It is generally accepted that over 100,000 R2 machines were sold.

The QWERTY keyboard was designed by Sholes and featured on the S&G machine which was first produced only four years before the Remington 2. It only typed upper case letters and didn’t have a ‘shift key’. The Remington 2 remained an up-strike machine just like it’s predecessor.

An up-strike machine has the type bars hanging down in a circle in what is called the type basket. When the keys are hit the type bars swing up against the platen and transfer a small quantity of ink to the paper from the ink-saturated ribbon that is stretched under the platen. The typist lifted the carriage to read what was written and check for errors. A front-strike machine which allows the reading of the document as it is being typed was many years away.

So what was different with the new Remington?

Probably the most important improvement was it’s capability to type in upper and lower case. This was made possible by the introduction of the ‘shift key’ that literally shifted the carriage to the front to type capitals. This key is still sometimes referred to as the ‘shift key’ even on computers that do not have a carriage. However, it is now more commonly called the ‘Enter’ key.

The S&G model had decorated panels surrounding the mechanism but these were removed on the Remington 2 in favour of a black open frame. This change made it quieter and established the open-black-box look typewriters would have for decades to come.

The Remington 2 was being being sold well into the 1890s and it wasn’t until 1908 that Remington yielded to market pressure to produce a front-strike machine named the Remington 10. There were various other Remington models produced and sold alongside the Remington 2 but it alone set the standard for typewriter design for many decades.

A Short History

Remington played a leading role in typewriter production for years but the original Remington Arms factory was only making typewriters for a short time. Remington originally owned only a minority share in the project but between 1877 and 1882 became the majority owners.

Later, between 1883 and 1886 marketers Wyckoff, Seamans and Benedict obtained full ownership and the right to use the Remington name. A new factory was built and manufacture transferred from the original Remington family arms factory.

Collectible or not?

So many of this model were made it is doubtful it will ever become valuable but for the antique typewriter collector this fact makes it more likely to obtain one.

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