What gunpowder was to warfare, the typewriter was to communication. When James Hammond of Boston, Massachusetts invented the typewriter in 1880, he revolutionized the field of mass media and communication. Gone were the laborious days of writing by hand and in came the faster and more efficient and mechanized tool. As a proud possessor of a vintage black Remington typewriter, I can vouch that there is a distinct satisfaction when you press down on each keystroke and hear the clack of metal meeting metal, while the sound resonates like a rhythmic percussion around my small room.
However, the typewriter was not just not only the writer’s favorite weapon but its invention greatly impacted businesses and the government because of its unprecedented speed and efficiency. Typewriters also played a crucial role in empowering women in the workforce, providing them with new opportunities for employment as typists and secretaries. Moreover, typewriters paved the way for further technological advancements in communication, leading ultimately to the development of computers and word processors.
An article by The Print mentions how up until the 1940s, our country was either importing typewriters or assembling them within the country. Most of them were from the American manufacturer, Remington and Sons, who also provided vernacular typewriters in Urdu, Arabic, Marathi, Gujarati, and Devanagari since 1910. However, post-independence, India wanted to manufacture its own typewriters locally. This idea was proposed in 1948 but had to be held off as the Mumbai-based company Godrej and Boyce were preoccupied with producing ballot boxes for independent India’s first elections. Almost a decade after our independence, in 1955, Godrej was finally ready to manufacture typewriters and became Asia’s first manufacturing enterprise. Their locally made typewriter in our country was called Godrej Prima.
The flooding of indigenously made typewriters in the Indian market amounted to it being more than just a successful commercial product; it became a swadeshi symbol, an emblem of an independent and industrial India under the leadership of its first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. At that time, India was still at its nascent stage but the fact that a homegrown company was manufacturing a machine with such global popularity and was also designed by the nation’s engineers made it a remarkable achievement.
"Typewriters styled the office life of the country and made India look like a modern state in the late 19th century. Novelists, journalists and politicians rapidly — and often enthusiastically — adopted its use."David Arnold, historian
Within a few years, Godrej typewriters were everywhere. Courts and government offices became the primary users of these machines in our country. Godrej typewriters competed with renowned foreign brands and also exported to numerous countries like Mozambique, Sri Lanka Angola and others. During the 1990s, which is hailed as the ‘golden era’ of typewriters in India, Godrej used to produce the lion's share of the total requirement of approximately 1,50,000 typewriters for India.
I would like to end with a factoid and an observation that amuses me. During the era of typewriters, most Indians preferred the clickety clack sound to the noiseless ones. In today's world where the more sophisticated technology in the form of keyboards dominate the market, there has been a growing demand in recent years for mechanical keyboards, that emulate their noisy forefathers. Even though typewriters are now endangered historical objects, they will always have a fond nostalgic place in our hearts and we have Godrej to thank for that.
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