The Typewriter Revolution: An Interview with PhD Student James Inglis on his Exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland

Blog written by Manon Williams, who is going into the second year of her PhD. Manon recently sat down to interview James Inglis about the exhibition he developed with National Museums Scotland: The Typewriter Revolution. James Inglis is co-supervised by Prof Aileen Fyfe (St Andrews), Dr Malcom Petrie (St Andrews) Dr Sam Alberti (National Museums Scotland), and Alison Taubman (National Museums Scotland and the senior curator of the exhibition). James’s research is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and included a six-month internship with National Museums Scotland.

James Inglis PhD student at National Museums Scotland and University of St Andrews cleans an Oliver typewriter, 1906 ahead of the exhibition opening. Neil Hanna Photography http://www.neilhannaphotography.co.uk 07702 246823

The Typewriter Revolution details the rise in popularity of the typewriter as a writing instrument and its influences on Scottish society in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The exhibit occupies a gallery space on the third floor of the museum and features a collection of 24 typewriters from the 1850s to the 1980s, accompanied by detailed informational plaques and videos of the typewriters in action (accessed by QR codes). Historic footage of typewriters, as featured in old films and advisements, are projected on the gallery’s walls. Not to be missed are the fantastic pieces of art—all created with typewriters—at the end of the exhibit.

Manon: Can you briefly describe the content and scope of the exhibit for readers who won’t be able to attend the exhibit in person?

James: The exhibition starts with the first patents [of writing machines] in the early eighteenth century and the development of experimental writing machines in the mid-nineteenth century. From the 1870s, you have the first commercially-produced typewriters. The exhibit then traces the development of portable typewriters and electric typewriters through the twentieth century until the 1980s, at which point the personal computer starts to take over. One of the unique things about this exhibition is that it really targets the social history of typewriters in Scotland.

Manon: What do you hope visitors will take away from the exhibit?

James: The main thing [I hope viewers will take away] is that typewriters provided entrepreneurial and business opportunities for women, and not just employment. Most historians have been obsessed with typewriters providing employment to women as typists and that’s gone into popular knowledge as well. You rarely hear about the women who owned and operated rather large and successful businesses. And the other thing, which I think is going to be more obvious, is that typewriters didn’t all just come in one design. A typewriter isn’t necessarily just a machine with a keyboard and a ribbon. The Oxford definition of a typewriter is that it must have keys and a ribbon, but hopefully this exhibition will show that that’s far from the case.

Manon: The exhibit is not only about the typewriters as writing tools and technology, but also a social history of the typewriter in Scotland. Do you have any favourite stories about the people who manufactured or used these technologies?

James: One of my favourites is the story of “Big” John Brady, who worked in the Glasgow Olivetti factory from 1950 to 1982, near when the factory was closing. And that’s really nice because it’s a story of someone who lived in Glasgow all of his life and worked his way up from an apprentice mechanic all the way up to a foreman, supervising the factory’s staff. And the stories all came from his son, who is enthusiastic that his father’s story has gone into this exhibition.

John Deas [a businessman from Dundee] is also really interesting because his enthusiasm for typewriters—and American technologies, generally—made him a central figure in my research. It’s nice to have such a local figure play such a prominent role in the exhibition. [You can read more about John Deas in the Courier’s article here]

Manon: Why do you think typewriters have continued to hold the public’s interest even as technology has moved on?

James: When I’ve put on typewriter exhibits at museum open days before COVID—where you could actually get people to type on them—you get this combination of younger kids who are fascinated by how it works and really like the fact that they can see the operation of the machine in front of them, and simultaneously, the older parents and grandparents would want to talk about their memories and experiences of using these machines.

Among the people that use them, I think there’s a very creative aspect to them. I’ve got a typewriter on my table [right now], and I keep looking at it and thinking to myself, ‘Oh, I really want to write something on it’, but I have no creativity for writing at all, so I just sit there and write out song lyrics because I just really want to use it. It’s an excellent instrument for writing, and I think many users will argue that there is no better tool if you want to just write. Some writers like the restrictions of this technology since you can’t really edit your work, so you don’t spend all day editing one sentence. There’s the added bonus that you can’t get distracted by notifications on your computer, or whatever else.

Manon: What do you think you’ve gained from this experience interning at the National Museum of Scotland?

James: Working collaboratively on this project has been really fun, especially trying to take the academic work that I’ve done and translate that into something that would work for an exhibition. For example, I would want to write thousands of words about every single object, but obviously that’s not going to work for an exhibition. Working with the copy-editors was really helpful. It’s incredible to think about all the effort that has gone into the exhibition text. What is now condensed into 100 words in the exhibition originated from 1,000 words of detailed research. Every phrase, every nuance, has been analysed thoroughly to make sure it can’t be misconstrued.

Manon: Do you have a favourite typewriter in the exhibition?

James: The Lettera 22 [Olivetti], because I own one and they are really nice to write on. It was popular among famous musicians and authors, including Bob Dylan who used one in his flat in Greenwich Village [New York]. They come with a tartan-lined case, which is also pretty great. It’s not the most outrageous-looking one, but it is the most stylish.

The Typewriter Revolution opened the 24^th of July 2021. The exhibition has garnered quite a lot of media coverage over the last few weeks with articles in the The Times, Women’s Hour, Reporting Scotland, The Courier, and a front-page feature in The Scotsman. Admittance is free (with pre-booked tickets to the National Museum of Scotland) and will run until April 17^th, 2022.