The Hamilton Automatic Typewriter

Emery M. Hamilton’s Masterpiece he Hamilton Automatic is consid- by Martin Howard AUTOMATIC beautifully engraved ered one of the masterpieces of 19th antiquetypewriters.com across its surface in a monogram style Tcentury American typewriter manufac- font. Two turned brass posts rise el- turing. It is exquisitely made, egantly from the back deck predominantly out of brass, to support the carriage on with the quality and look of two parallel rods. A small a fine scientific instrument. faceted platen straddles the There are only eight known covered central tower that examples of this rare and houses the circular, slotted beautiful machine. This ar- typebar segment. The small ticle presents what is known mushroom-shaped bell about the Automatic and stands alone in full view. reveals questions still unan- Hamilton’s Automatic swered. was the first manufactured The Automatic has the typewriter with proportion- distinction of being the al spacing. This automatic smallest typebar typewriter movement of the carriage ever made. Its 9" by 12" box must surely have been the is about the size of a box source of the typewriter’s of chocolates. For its size, name. The carriage moves though, its weight is sub- the correct distance for the stantial at 12 lbs. different width of characters. The first thing one notices It moves correspondingly 2 about the Automatic is the warm color- clicks, 3 clicks, and 4 clicks for “I,” “H,” ation of the turned brass key cups with and “W” width characters. The Auto- inlaid lacquered characters. Three rows matic’s patent was applied for in 1884 and of keys step up gradually to a prominent granted in 1887. The Columbia 1b with nickel-plated space bar, with the name

ETCetera No. 92 / December 2010 /  its two type wheels also tor with a patent record had proportional spacing, showing many ingenious but it came later, with its inventions registered in patent applied for in 1885 his name. The first refer- and granted in 1889. ence to one of his inven- Here is a rare period tions appears in Scientific account of the Automat- American in 1871, with a ic written in 1891. favorable review of an adding machine, “auto- To this sweeping disposal matically registering the of type-bar instruments one sum totals of the num- exception must be made. It is bers set off upon it.” He the Automatic, a peculiarly was only 33. neat little instrument sold neer and inventor is scarce; however, in His first patent was for at $65, retail. It is small, weighs only twelve this article some new pieces of the puz- a “Perspective Diagram Sheet” in 1880. pounds, and writes only capitals and neces- zle come together. Also during that year, a patent was is- sary figures and commercial signs. Its field is In 1861, at the age of 23, Hamilton sued for a T-square for use in making that of the travelling man, or for small com- joined the United States Army as a vol- perspective drawings, followed in 1882 by mercial uses not warranting higher priced unteer. In 1863 he was a major in the 1st patents for an “Electric Telegraph Trans- machines. It prints from the face of the type, Regiment Engineers Corps d’Afrique. mitter” (Victor key) and a “Telegraphic which, when not in use, rests against the ink- His name is listed as E. Manville Ham- Receiving Instrument.” His Victor key pad, as in the Yost. The alignment is good, and ilton in the records. Hamilton would was acquired by L.G. Tillotson & Co., a there is an automatic lock which prevents two be known as “Major Hamilton of New leading competitor to J.H. Brunnell. Til- type-bars coming into collision. If two keys are York” for the rest of his life. lotson offered various key designs dur- struck at the same time, only one type prints; There is a listing in the 1880 census ing the 1880s and considered Hamilton’s the other does nothing. The spacing of this of New York City for Emery Hamilton Victor key the “most successful key of machine has one merit peculiar to itself. Each and his wife Josephine. Hamilton listed the group.” letter has only so much space as it needs and his occupation as a mining engineer and While clearly Hamilton had become not as in other machines. (W. Mathews, The his birth date was shown as about 1837. It captivated in the early 1880s with invent- Writing Machine [Chicago: Northwestern was not unusual for dates of birth to be ing typewriters, he continued to invent Christian Advocate of Chicago, 1891], stated in such vague terms. other complex machines, notably the p.10—courtesy of Jos Legrand, first device “to enable measure- Netherlands) ments of time, space, or quantity to be easily and quickly record- The original finish on the brass ed by automatically-changing deck is a bronze-colored lacquer mechanism” in 1890 (patent no. coat with a gentle brushed tex- 424292). The assignor of this pat- ture. The cover for the circular ent was Henry Abbott of New type-bar segment is finished in York. Abbott would patent his a darker bronze lacquer with own time recording device in no brush strokes. Many of the 1897 called the Calculagraph surviving Automatics have been (patent no. 583320) and become polished and this lacquer finish president of The Calculagraph removed. Surviving Automatics Co. of New York. Hamilton’s may have a tarnished look—but last recorded patents, from 1899 in my opinion, should not be and 1901, deal with improve- polished in order to preserve the ments for the action of piano finish of the original lacquer. hammers. The Automatic sold for $65, a surpris- Evidence of his engineering work ex- As mentioned, the first three patents ingly low price considering its beautiful ists today. One of the names for the Stony for the Automatic were applied for in craftsmanship. Many keyboard type- Pass trail in Colorado (elevation 11,000 1884 and granted in 1887. Further patents writers of the day were selling for $100. feet) is Hamilton Pass. It is named after for the Automatic followed, along with Emery M. Hamilton, the inventor of Major E.M. Hamilton, who built a wag- patents for other ingenious typewriters the Automatic, was born Jan 22, 1838, in on road along the route in 1872. that were apparently never made. These Allegany County, New York. He was Towards the end of his life Hamilton typewriters will be discussed later in one of five children. His father, Horace lived in Flushing, New York, where he this article. G. Hamilton, was a pioneer settler in died at the age of 83 in 1921. He had no It is interesting to see that Abbott is Wisconsin and held various local offices, children. There is no further informa- introduced as a leading jeweler in the including that of justice of the peace. tion about his wife. sentence below from The Phonographic Information about this impressive engi- Hamilton was a professional inven- World (May, 1892). Hamilton is also re-

 / ETCetera No. 92 / December 2010 ferred to as a jeweler in vari- Stenographer (Vol, 8, August ous publications. This appar- 1890, p. 273, at left, courtesy ent confusion of profession of Jos Legrand). must have to do with what The following three Ham- the profession of a jeweler ilton patents granted in 1890 represented then and what it show further innovations for represents today. People who the Automatic. None appears built and repaired watches to have been manufactured. and clocks were sometimes The double case typewriter referred to as jewelers in referred to in the National the 19th century. Moreover, Stenographer review is Hamil- when someone had a watch ton’s patent no. 430773, which in need of repair they took it for the Automatic—shows that Abbott was designed with a platen to a jewelry store. So perhaps the term was the sole agent for the Automatic. that would rise straight up, giving two “jeweler” was also used to refer to people It states that it “is the only writing ma- positions for the type-bars to strike the who did fine mechanical work, as both chine in the market which will automati- platen. Hamilton and Abbott were doing: cally space the letters correctly with ref- Patent no. 430776 positioned the es- erence to their proper widths.” With the capement mechanism behind the platen. The Automatic Typewriter Company was word “Automatic” repeated three times Patent no. 427858 (applied for in 1885) formed in March of the same year, and the around the illustration, there can be no promised an intriguing method to type: machines put on the market in 1888. Sev- mistake in deducing where the name of “My invention has for its main object to eral patents of improvement were also issued Hamilton’s typewriter came from. provide a type-writing machine wherein to Henry Abbott, a leading jeweler of New one finger-key may be used to actuate York, who was subsequently interested, with two or more type-bars.” other capitalists, in its introduction and sale. The end of the Automatic Abbott’s involvement with the Auto- matic was significant, since two patents Though it was a remarkably compact were issued to him for improvements typing machine with a light and even to the typewriter in 1890 (both applied touch, the Automatic was short-lived. for in 1888). The first patent (no. 437371) According to The Phonographic World of solved the thorny problem described May 1892, “The Automatic was with- by Abbott: “In the case of type-writers drawn from the market in 1891, after an much trouble is occasioned by the acci- expenditure of about $60,000 for its in- dental depression of two adjacent keys.” troduction, the stockholders refusing to To solve this problem he introduced “a invest further, and the factory closed.” locking-plate which is adapted to be Escapement One can speculate on the reasons for moved longitudinally by the action of its failure, including the position of the the keys of a type-writer and to prevent Good reviews and spacebar behind the keyboard. G. C. movement of the keys adjacent to the continued modifications Mares bluntly points out in The History key being operated.” of the Typewriter, “the space bar was be- The Automatic was praised for its His second patent (no. 437372) packed hind the keys, this being enough to kill “very many good points” in the typebars into a smaller-diameter cir- The National the machine itself.” Few if any other cle by pulling every second type­ typewriters had their spacebar bar a bit back from the center. positioned there, and for good This typebar arrangement al- reason. It would have been awk- lowed for a surprising action—to ward to move one’s fingers up to have lower and upper case char- activate the spacebar while typ- acters type in different colors! ing. With the typebars positioned Typing only in uppercase char- with two different striking dis- acters was a severe limitation, at tances from the platen and two a time when many fine typewrit- concentric inking pads of differ- ers gave upper and lower case ent colors, this remarkable effect characters. The Automatic was could be achieved. Not surpris- also a “blind writer,” typing on ingly, this invention did not ap- the underside of the platen. It pear on the manufactured Auto- was not alone at the time in this matic. feature, but it did not show the The advertisement on p. 4 from way forwards. 1890—the only known display ad Loading the paper around

ETCetera No. 92 / December 2010 /  the platen was very awkward. First the The typebar typewriter that Ham- Ser. no. platen has to disconnect from its resting ilton was promoting was patented in 58 Dickerson - USA position in the carriage, by being pushed 1897 (patent no. 592052, above). It was 103 Milwaukee Public Museum quite hard sideways against the locking designed with the same fine detail and (Dietz Collection) - USA 121 Barbian - Germany tension. The platen is then swung upside overall form as the Automatic. His goal 163 Breker - Germany down to expose the feed roller for the was “to produce a very compact and ef- 168 Russo - USA paper. When the paper is gripped, the ficient type-writer” and it appears that 199 Clark - USA platen is locked back into the carriage he did just that. 215 Casillo - USA and the paper is finally positioned for With the typebars swinging down to 231 Howard - Canada typing. strike the top of the platen, the spacebar The extraordinary offer from The Pho- in front of the keyboard, and two shift In 1949, the pioneering American nographic World in 1893 (see bottom of keys moving the carriage backwards and collector Carl Dietz discovered an Au- p. 5) clearly shows that the Automatic forwards for upper and lower case char- tomatic but was unable to acquire it. In was marginalized from the mainstream acters, this typewriter had lots of merits. a letter to Ernst Martin (author of Die typewriter market. An Automatic was However, there is no record of its ever Schreibmaschine, an encyclopedic ac- being promised free to anyone who se- being made. If one ever turns up, it will count of all typewriters made up to that cured fifteen new subscriptions to the be a major find. time), he conveyed his acute frustration, World. Free shipping was included! (The not knowing that in the end he would Phonographic World, 1893, VIII, p. 303, acquire an Automatic. Whether it was courtesy of Jos Legrand.) this one he refers to here will never be known: Hamilton’s frontstrike Several months ago in one of our nearby typewriter of 1897 towns a man found an Automatic typewriter (1881, Abb.81, page 114 in your book) in the In April 1896, an entry in the Illus- attic of an old house. I offered him a fair price trated Phonographic World entitled “Type- for it to be given to the Museum, but he says writers in use in the United States” lists it is a collector’s item and he hopes to get a lot the Automatic among “thousands upon of money for it. What provokes me is that the thousands which have been entirely The surviving few man does not need the money. I told him he withdrawn from the market.” Shortly “I just acquired a marvelous typewrit- should donate the machine as a matter of civic after that remark, Hamilton visited the er—an all brass Automatic. It came out interest, but he remains adamant. Such expe- offices of the editor and prompted the of an attic in New Jersey and is serial no. riences are very discouraging. (Courtesy of following published response later that 58. The Milwaukee museum has no. 103 Jos Legrand) year. and Dennis Clark has 199 and I know of no other Automatics anywhere.” (Note the incorrect year for the Auto- S.T. Smith (original proprietor of the S.T. Collector Richard Dickerson used matic in the Martin book. This incorrect Smith Co., of New York), informed the World these words in 1986 to announce to the year has appeared in many publications.) editor last month that he is at work inventing collecting community his major find. In the end, I believe that Dietz eventu- a cheap typewriter. E.M. Hamilton, also of And he typed the announcement on his ally found two Automatics. New York, inventor in 1887 of the Automatic Automatic! Who will find the next one? ± typewriter, called at the World office last Since that time, five more Automatics month and informed us that he also has nearly have been discovered, mine being the I am indebted to Tony Casillo and Jos Le- completed the perfection of another just such last, bringing the total known to eight. grand for sharing their enthusiasm, knowl- typewriter. The above gentlemen, or their in- The known Automatics all have low edge and generous advice in the preparation of ventions, have nothing in common. Both will serial numbers, clearly showing how few this story, and to my wife Susan, who always be type bar machines. were ever made. supported my efforts in this project.

 / ETCetera No. 92 / December 2010