The idea of making electric typewriters to increase their speed and efficiency was applied experimentally as early as 1900, but repeated experiments failed to convince manufacturers and clients that such complicated contraptions might become part of everyday life. By the. 1930s the concept of portable mechanical typewriters was aggressively marketed, and despite the Depression the type- .writer industry managed to survive, since its product had become so essential to the business world — even bankruptcy papers required typing. Among the-typewriter companies either failing or being taken over, the Northeast Electric Company, which had been attempting to expand the use of electricity in offices, was bought out by International Business Machines (later IBM). The office giant in effect rescued an idea from experimental oblivion, as it started work toward what would later become the standard office business typewriter'. It would be another quarter...