April 1, 2025

From World to Simplex: Early Index Typewriters

The World 1 typewriter, patented by a Boston-based inventor, John Becker (with help from his brothers, George and Philip), was originally offered in 1886 by the World Typewriter Company in Maine. It was an inexpensive index machine aimed at the lower end of the market, an alternative to the pricer, bulkier, and more complicated typewriters that were around before 1900.

An index typewriter followed a similar principle to those Dymo Industries handheld label makers that were ubiquitous in households in the 1950s and ’60s. The user would point at a letter with the swinging index pointer and then stamp the letter against a pair of small felt ink pads onto a sheet of paper.  (Using an ink dropper to add more ink when necessary.) The original World 1 typed only in caps; the World 2 had upper and lower case. They came in quite beautiful mahogany boxes. Advertisements at the time claimed a typist could produce 75-80 words per minute, although it’s hard to imagine anyone managing that. Nonetheless, the World was a very successful product that created a market for a small, “pocket” index typewriters.

At this point, things become murky. The Australian typewriter historian Robert Messenger wrote an authoritative essay abou it…  https://oztypewriter.blogspot.com/2011/06/wonderfully-complicated-world-of.html

Several years after the World had become successful, Messenger wrote, the Beckers were involved with William John Thompson and his son, John as well as Analdo Myrtle English and his uncle, Benjamin Livermore. In some combination, these three families were associated with developing the Simplex index typewriter that followed because, as Messenger notes, “it seems highly possible that the Simplex is simply a simplified, later adaptation of the World.” Where the initial Simplexes were marketed to adults, later it became a toy typewriter for children.