How Typewriters Changed Correspondence

Abstract

Typewriters began to be widely used in the 1880s and 1890s, and one of the first uses was for the typing of commercial correspondence. Because typewriters are relatively inflexible compared with handwriting, typing inevitably influenced the visual organization of correspondence. These changes in visual organization are evident in the reduced use of indention and superscript, increased width of margins, and line spacing being dependent on the length of the letter. This paper will discuss the development of such changes, drawing examples both from the prescriptions for, and the practice of, commercial correspondence.