Though there were many early innovations, the first typewriter to be commercially successful was invented in 1868 by Americans Christopher Latham Sholes, Frank Haven Hall, Carlos Glidden and Samuel W. Soul in Milwaukee, WI. It was called the Sholes and Glidden Type-Writer. This was the origin of the term “typewriter”. In the day stenographers and telegraphers could type at rates of up to 130 words per minute, whereas a writer with a pen was limited to a maximum of 30 words per minute (the 1853 speed record).
