Born in Erie, October 13, 1850, George Canfield Blickensderfer, early in his life, at the age of 10, showed himself to be an inventor by nature when he attempted to build a flying machine, but like most childhood projects his efforts were unsuccessful. George spent his childhood on his father's farm near Erie, and was educated at the Home Academy. His first business training was obtained in the dry goods business in Erie, where he remained six years.
When George left Erie, he became a traveling salesman for a large New York firm, his trips took him through the middle and western states. Through his visits to the large department and dry goods stores his attention was directed to the somewhat crude systems of cash and package carriers then in use. Seeing room for plenty of improvement, George began developing his first invention — a store carrier service that could transport packages and money from different store counters to a central packing station and back.
His invention succeeded so well that in 1884 he resigned his position as a traveling salesman in order to devote his entire time to it. Patents were obtained, and a company was organized known as the United Store Service Company, with George as general manager. He was able to install his system in many of the largest stores in the country, and the enterprise proved a decided success.
George spent much of his time traveling by train while pursuing his conveyor business. It was during his travels that he realized the need for a portable typewriter so that businessmen could type letters and invoices while traveling on the train or while in their hotel.
In order to give his undivided attention to the typewriter business he offered for sale his interest in the store service system. The negotiations finally resulted in a consolidation of companies, which purchased all his interest. The sale made George a rich man, and he was thus enabled to carry out his plans for the development of the portable typewriter.
Now in his 30s, George and his first wife, Nellie, moved to Stamford, Connecticut, where he built his first typewriter in a little workshop behind their house on 88 Bedford Street. George's first patent for a typewriter, in 1889, was his basic invention for a type-wheel machine operated from a keyboard. Such a design eliminated the numerous type-bars and their mechanisms that connected them to each key — the first portable typewriter, weighing about one-fifth the weight of contemporary typewriters, with only 250 parts: one 10th of the number used in other machines.
To manufacture and sale his new typewriter a company was formed, the Blickensderfer Manufacturing Company, of which George was made President and Manager. The company continued to improve and experiment on his new typewriter for four years, during which time $250,000 was spent in building and equipping the plant for the manufacture of the different models.
George developed several models of his typewriter before he considered it ready for production. No examples of the first four models are known to exist, but Model 5 was built by the thousands. The machine was presented in public for the first time at the 1893 Columbian Exhibition in Chicago, where George's attractive red-headed secretary, May Munson, drew large crowds as she typed away at great speed on this wonderful little machine with its fascinating type-wheel. Other typewriters companies were reported to have closed their booths early, as George brought in hundreds of orders, including his first export deals.
At the World's Fair in 1895 the Judges gave his typewriter in their award, the strongest endorsement of any exhibit, characterizing it as "an extraordinary advancement in the act, scope, speed, operation and manufacture of typewriting machines."
The Model 5, remains without doubt the most remarkable typewriter ever built. Among its many virtues were that one could actually see what one was writing. It employed an innovatory DHIATENSOR keyboard format, titled by Blickensderfer Scientific and Ideal. The model 5, was so good that 35 years after it first appeared, Remington bought the tools and dies and marketed through Sears an exact replica. Think of any other machine to which that sort of tribute has ever been made.
The export market was important for the Blickensderfer typewriter company from the very beginning. The machine was sold to England, Germany, France, New Zealand, and Canada to begin with. One of the strong points was the interchangeable type-wheel that was produced for many different languages, including Slovak, Armenian, and Hebrew. By 1896 he was producing some 10,000 machines per year.
When World War I begun it was a heavy blow for the Blickensderfer export market and the company almost went under. However, George invented a device to feed cartridges into machine guns along a belt. Again, he signed a tremendous export order and sold the device to the French government for several years.
In 1901 George invented the first electric typewriter, a breathtaking electric typewriter, that in functionality and speed was not matched until IBM introduced the famous typeball (golf ball model) half a century later. Although the machine was advertised, sales never got off the ground and only three samples of the Electric are known to exist today.
During his life, George married, Nellie Irene Smith in 1879, they had one child, Elsie Canfield Blickensderfer (1882-1897). Nellie died in 1915. A year later, in 1916, George married his second wife, Katherine, who was soon to be widowed when George, a year later, died after a lengthy illness in August 15, 1917.
George is buried in the Blickensderfer Mausoleum, which sets on a knoll at the southwestern end of Woodland Cemetery in Stamford, Connecticut. It is an impressive structure of gray granite, with two richly decorated cast bronze entrance doors that are flanked by large support columns. At one time, leaded stain glass adorned the doors and rear window, but this had been broken out by vandals. There is a thirty-foot walkway leading up to the mausoleum.
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| George C. Blickensderfer. |
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| May Munson. |
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| The first portable typewriter. |
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| The first electric typewriter. |
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| A Blickensderfer advertisement. |
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| Blickensderfer stock certificate. |