Educational Implications
The story of typewriters in education is interesting because the typewriter is a finite technology. Handwriting is not finite and as much as the title of this website suggests it, typewriting did not supplant handwriting in schools. Handwriting is alive and well. We may be comparing apples to oranges because the typewriter was invented in the 19th century, was used in schools up to the late 20th century then was surpassed by computer usage by the 1990s. The story of the typewriter is not the story of typing which continues in the computer age and it is also not the story of print which began with the printing press in the 15th century and continues today. What we are actually comparing is the benefits of handwriting versus the benefits of typing, whether on a computer, tablet or typewriter. The discussion is not limited to typewriters in education however the benefits of typing and handwriting have remained fairly static through the 20th century up to now.