Tuesday, April 28, 2009


Sholes in 1869 took on as partner a burly, swaggering, salesman character named James Dunsmore. Dunsmore did not have two nickels to rub together, but he had plenty of grit and saw in the typing machine a chance to make a fortune. First, however, he wanted Sholes to improve the crude device, and he imposed on the inventor for a succession of some 50 models---each reflecting some minor improvement---before he had the machine he wanted. At that point, Dunsmore began approaching manufacturers. After an unsuccessful attempt to sell exclusive manufacturing rights to Western Union Company for a reported $50,000, Dunsmore and an associate approached Mr. Philo Remington, president of the Remington Company. -- James M. Utterback: Mastering the Dynamics of Innovation, Harvard Business School Press, Boston (1996).

His name was James Densmore, not Dunsmore. Mr. Densmore in 1869 was successful in oil trading at Pennsylvania, so he had a lot of money at that time. First, Mr. Densmore tried to find customers for Sholes' Type-Writer. In Chicago, he contacted Mr. Edward Payson Porter and then delivered several machines to Porter's Telegraph College as I mentioned before. After the failure at Porter's Telegraph College, Mr. Densmore started to find manufacturers. In New York, he contacted Mr. George Harrington of the American Telegraph Works, but Sholes' Type-Writer was severely criticized by one of Harrington's partners, Mr. Thomas Alva Edison. In St. Louis, Mr. Densmore contacted Mr. Charles Edward Weller to exhibit Sholes' Type-Writer in St. Louis Fair. Again in Chicago, Mr. Densmore contacted Mr. Anson Stager, who was the president of Western Electric Manufacturing, but Western Electric Manufacturing couldn't manufacture the Type-Writer. Then, in Ilion, Mr. Densmore contacted Mr. Philo Remington of E. Remington & Sons (cf. Koichi Yasuoka and Motoko Yasuoka: Myth of QWERTY Keyboard, NTT Publishing, Tokyo (2008)).

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