Oliver Typewriter Company

For the tractor manufacturer, see Oliver Corp.

The Oliver Typewriter Company
Type	Private company
Founded	1895
Founder	Thomas Oliver
Dissolved	1928
Headquarters	Chicago, Illinois, USA
Key people	Thomas Oliver, Namesake/Inventor Delavan Smith, Vice-President[1]
Industry	Typewriters
Products	See Typewriters section

The Oliver Typewriter Company was a manufacturer of typewriters headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. The Oliver Typewriter was the first "visible print" typewriter, meaning text was visible to the typist as it was entered.^[2] Oliver typewriters were also the first to be successfully marketed for home use,^[3] with more than one million typewriters produced by the late 1920s.^[4] Competitive pressure and financial troubles resulted in the company's liquidation in 1928. The company’s assets were purchased by The British Oliver Typewriter Company, which manufactured and licensed the machines until its own closure in the late 1950s. The last Oliver typewriter was produced in 1959.

History

Thomas Oliver

Thomas Oliver

Thomas Oliver was born in Woodstock, Ontario, Canada on August 1 1852. Having become interested in religion, Oliver moved to Monticello, Iowa after the death of his mother, to serve as a Methodist minister. During that time Oliver designed and developed his first typewriter, made from strips of tin cans, as a means of producing more legible sermons.^[5] He was awarded his first typewriter patent, US Patent No. 450,107, on April 7 1891.^[6] Oliver resigned his ministry and moved to Epworth, Iowa, where he found investors willing to provide $15,000 of capital, and leased a building in which to manufacture his machines. While visiting Chicago to promote the machine, Oliver encountered a businessman named Delavan Smith, who became interested in the typewriter and bought the majority of the company’s stock from the Iowa investors. Oliver retained a 65% interest in the company and continued to develop the typewriter, at an annual salary of $3,000.^[7] Oliver died suddenly of "heart disease" on February 9 1909, aged 56.^[8]

The Oliver Typewriter Company

The Oliver Typewriter Company began operating in 1895, with its headquarters on the ninth floor of a building on the corner of Clark and Randolph Street in Chicago. Manufacturing moved from Iowa to Woodstock, Illinois in 1896, when the City of Woodstock donated a vacant factory once used by the Wheeler and Tappan Company on the condition that the Oliver Typewriter Company remain there for five years.^[9] Manufacturing was divided into six departments: type bar, carriage, assembly, tabulators and adjustment, inspection and an aligning room.^[10] Company headquarters moved to the Oliver Building, now a Chicago landmark on the National Register of Historic Places, when it was completed in 1907.^[11] The Oliver was the first typewriter to achieve relatively successful home sales.^[3] Starting in 1899, the company encouraged customers to become distributors by selling directly to neighbors. Marketing relied on word of mouth, which emphasized "direct sales" (door to door) and, after 1905, sales on credit. In response to increased competition in the late 1910s, however, the company eliminated its network of local salesman and used the resulting savings in commissions to reduce the typewriter's $100 price by half.^[12] Sales increased and, at its peak, the company's labor force of 875 was producing 375 machines daily.^[5] In addition to its offices in Illinois, the company had branch offices in Baltimore, Buffalo, Cleveland, Kansas City, Minneapolis, New York, Omaha, St. Louis, San Francisco and Seattle, all of which closed when Oliver shifted to mail order sales in March 1917. A minor recession in 1921–1922 caused a large number customers to default on their payments, resulting in the repossession of their typewriters. The company opted not to borrow money and, in 1926, the board of directors voted to liquidate the company. Only one employee, Chester Nelson, was retained to oversee the company's liquidation.^[13]

The Oliver Typewriter Company factory in Woodstock, Illinois

The British Oliver Typewriter Company

In 1928, the Oliver Typewriter Company was sold to the British Oliver Typewriter Company of Croydon, England.^[14] All Oliver typewriters produced in England during World War II went to the British government to assist the war effort; none were available for private ownership.^[15] After the war, the British Oliver Typewriter Company licensed manufacturing to other European companies, including companies based in Austria and Italy. Production of all Oliver typewriters ended in May 1959.^[16]

Typewriters

Oliver model No.5

Design

The general design of Oliver typewriters remained mostly unchanged throughout the company's history.^[13] The Olivers are "down strike" typewriters, meaning the typebars strike the platen from above, rather than from below ("up strike"), or from the front ("front strike"). Unlike the "up strike" method, which prints text out of sight on the underside of the platen, the "down strike" is a "visible print" design, meaning the full page is visible to the typist as the text is being entered. The "front strike" method, also a "visible print" design, was patented at around the same time (1889–91), but an effective machine that did not interfere with the typist’s line of sight was not available until 1897, when the Underwood No. 1 appeared on the market, about three years after the introduction of the Oliver No. 1.^[17] The Oliver’s typebars are bent in a bow (forming an inverted "U" shape) and rest in "towers" on the sides of the typewriter. The resulting, distinctive shape spawned the nickname "iron butterfly".^[15][18] This design limited the machine to a three-row keyboard, as the typebars were stacked such that they grew progressively larger as more were added. The size and usability implications of adding additional keys, and thus more typebars, precluded the addition of a fourth keyboard row dedicated to numbers.^[17] Although a four-row prototype was designed in 1922, it was shelved due to the company’s financial troubles at that time.^[5] Customer preference for four-row keyboards, and the relatively greater striking power of the "down strike" design, led the American Oliver to be "marginalized"^[3] for use as a stencil maker or "manifolder". From 1931 onwards, the British Oliver Typewriter Company produced machines with four-row keyboards.^[13]

Color

Oliver typewriters were finished with olive green paint or nickel-plating and white or black keyboards, depending on customer preference. Beginning with model No. 3, all machines were painted green except those to be exported to warm or damp regions, which continued to be nickel-plated.^[19] The color was changed from green to black on the introduction of model No. 11.^[18]

Models

United States

The following models were produced in the United States between 1894 and 1928:^[14][12]

Note: With the exception of model No. 2, even-numbered models were produced with extra keys for sale in countries with accented languages.

United Kingdom

The following models were produced by the British Oliver Typewriter Company between 1930 and 1942:^[14]

International

• Canada - The Linotype Company of Montreal produced a variant of the No. 3.^[20]
• Austria - A. Greger & Co., a company in Vienna produced the model No. 3 under the name “Courier” from 1903 to 1924. The company also produced the model No. 3 as a “Jacobi”, named after its sewing machine division, for sale in Germany.^[20]

External links

• Early Office Museum - Antique Office Typewriters
• ETCetera – Magazine of the Early Typewriter Collections Association
• Oliver - The Standard visible Typewriter
• Oliver Portables and Relatives
• Oliver Typewriter Brochure ca. 1908

References

•  • e City of Chicago
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