Every year, I enjoy a two-month mini-retirement. I am, after all, a school teacher. You’d think I’d have a lot of time to write — and I do — but writing consists primarily of short stories; little attention is given to this blog. I do hope to post some of these stories when I’ve had a chance to proof them, but I don’t know when this will happen.
My summer also consists of traveling and reading. Thus far, I’ve visited the Pinnacles National Forest (see photos) and my folks in Nevada. My reading list includes Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick, alongside Augustine’s Confessions and Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Creation and Fall. The list is eclectic, but my mind tends to range.
Typewriter-wise, I’m working on a history of the original Remington portable typewriter, and I have collected a dozen or so related articles from the 1920s. Very interesting material. Here’s a question, how were typewriter manufacturers affected by World War I? I note that Remington and Underwood did not release portables until after the war. Were there materials shortages? If anyone has knowledge, please e-mail me at netadams @ gmail.
Ah, these days are just packed.
© 2014, Mark Adams. All rights reserved.
I should have the new serial number list for Remington Portables up in a couple weeks. If you need the numbers sooner, let me know and I can shoot over a PDF of the list I’m working from.
Recognize the so-many-things experience 🙂
That Remington portable history I’ll be looking fwd to. The emergence of a new class of products in the established TW market is historically interesting (I think) and have been looking at that a bit. Given established category owners (Corona), they needed something differentiating (4-bank). Most interesting launch strategy they used; these days I think this would be called a soft-launch – limited availability and lots of product iterations the first year.
Good stuff!
Probably nothing till the fall, but it should be interesting.
Stumbled on your post via Typosphere. I have a Remington that I love and am also reading St. Augustine this summer. Always cool to run across like minded people.
Thought I’d follow up to your question about typewriter companies not releasing models until after the war… this is because during wartimes they manufactured weapons, in particular rifles and other guns. One reason I know this is that several generations of my family worked at Remington in Illion, NY, which later became Remington-Rand. This includes my great-grandfather, my grandfather, and my uncle.