Old tech and new

– In which Dorn enjoys his gadgets.

PART 1: OLD TECH

While cleaning out the shed recently, I found where I had stored my grandmother's typewriter. It had been sitting in there, undisturbed, probably since we first moved here over twenty years ago. I don’t remember exactly how it came into my possession, but I think I've had it since my college days, almost fifty years ago.

Amazingly, it still works fine, after receiving no TLC, or any kind of maintenance, probably in over half a century. I just needed to buy a new typewriter ribbon, and the thing seems to work almost as well as it ever did! (It lost a small spring somewhere along the way that helped with the carriage return, but works as well with a small rubber band in its place.) They built equipment to last, back then.

“Then” was 1921. I can tell that the typewriter was built in December 1921 because of the serial number, NA14989. According to the Remington typewriter serial number database (yes, they really do have everything on the internet), this was a “Remington Portable #1”, as indicated by the “N” in the serial number. The “A” means that it was manufactured in December, and the “1” means this was in 1921.

It was the 4,989th typewriter to come off the assembly line that December. A few years after 1921, they eliminated the month indicator, and just had straight serial numbers. I'm guessing they did this because their production had increased to more than 9,999 typewriters per month (these were popular little units!).

Remington portable typewriter

Was that typewriter her necessary tool for her no-doubt smart and gender-trailblazing first job (one has only to look at her to see how smart and fearless she must have been back then)? Or did she use it to help with her no-doubt voluminous correspondence with friends and relations--was it her generation's Facebook or Instagram? I wish I knew!

Next up: new tech (here)!

Thanks,
Dorn
1/11/2020

One thought on “Old tech and new”

Debra Naylor says:

January 11, 2020 at 12:29 pm

Wow! Dottie looked a lot like her mother! Great post. Dx

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