United Typewriter Company Ltd.
Underwood Typewriter No. 5
Model No. 2405987-5
Toronto, Ontario
The Underwood Typewriter Company was a manufacturer of typewriters headquartered in New York City, New York. Underwood produced what is considered the first widely successful, modern typewriter. By 1939, Underwood had produced five million machines.
From 1874, the Underwood family made typewriter ribbon and carbon paper, and were among a number of firms who produced these goods for Remington. When Remington decided to start producing ribbons themselves, the Underwoods opted to manufacture typewriters.
The original Underwood typewriter was invented by German-American Franz Xaver Wagner, who showed it to entrepreneur John Thomas Underwood. Underwood supported Wagner and bought the company, recognising the importance of the machine. Underwood No. 1 and No. 2s, made between 1896 and 1900, had "Wagner Typewriter Co." printed on the back.
The Underwood No. 5 launched in 1900 has been described as "the first truly modern typewriter". Two million had been sold by the early 1920s, and its sales “were equal in quantity to all of the other firms in the typewriter industry combined”. When the company was in its heyday as the world's largest typewriter manufacturer, its factory at Hartford, Connecticut was turning out typewriters at the rate of one each minute.
The design that launched millions of typewriters! When it appeared on the market shortly before 1900, the Underwood No. 5 immediately became the design standard for all typewriters to come, all the way up until the 1960s when the IBM Selectric came out.
This is the most successful typewriter design in history, and by 1920 almost every typewriter in production was using some imitation of the Underwood No. 5 design.
The production of the Underwood Models 3, 4, and 5 lasted until early 1932. The difference among the three models are subtle: The No. 3 is a wide-carriage machine, the No. 4 types 76 characters, and the No. 5 types 84 characters.
The No. 5 was the quintessential Underwood.
Millions of these machines were used by secretaries, journalists, government officials, and writers throughout the first half of the twentieth century. The classic desktop.
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