James_Densmore

James Densmore

James Densmore

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James Densmore (February 3, 1820 – September 16, 1889) was an American businessman, inventor and vegetarian. He was a business associate of Christopher Sholes, who along with Carlos Glidden and Samuel W. Soule helped contribute to inventing one of the first practical typewriters at a machine shop located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.[2]

Quick Facts Born, Died ...

It was believed that Densmore had suggested splitting up commonly used letter combinations in order to solve a jamming problem, but this called into question.[3] This concept was later refined by Sholes later refined this concept, so it became known as the QWERTY key layout.

Densmore was a militant vegetarian. His diet consisted of mostly raw apples.[4] His brother was physician Emmet Densmore.[5]

Densmore also supported women's suffrage in Wisconsin.[6] When he was the editor of the Oshkosh True Democrat the paper publicly supported women's right to vote.[7]

References

  1. [1]
    Johnson
  2. [2]
    Invention of the Typewriter Archived 2011-12-20 at the Wayback Machine, Wisconsin Historical Marker, Retrieved May 11, 2008.
  3. [3]
    Koichi and Motoko Yasuoka: On the Prehistory of QWERTY, ZINBUN, No.42 (March 2011), pp.161-174.
  4. [4]
    Anonymous. (1923). Story of the Typewriter, 1873-1923. Herkimer County Historical Society. p. 38
  5. [5]
    Guinn, James Miller. (1902). Historical and Biographical Record of Southern California. Chapman Publishing Company. pp. 1216-1217
  6. [6]
    Youmans 1921, p. 4.
  7. [7]
    Youmans 1921, p. 4-5.

Bibliography

  • Johnson, Rossiter, et al. (1904). The Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans. The Biographical Society
  • Youmans, Theodora W. (September 1921). "How Wisconsin Women Won the Ballot". The Wisconsin Magazine of History. 5 (1): 3–32. JSTOR 4630337 – via JSTOR.
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