Click images to view AI-rendered versions.
Reading The Hartford Courant’s account of the local war effort, the real hero of the day was the Underwood typewriter factory, which valiantly maintained production quotas during the First World War. Not so much credit was given to the women who actually manufactured the machines. “Steps were taken,” observed the Courant, “to eliminate non-essential demands. The typewriter industry was organized along these lines: through the work of this organization, the needs of the government were most promptly met.”
From The Rutland Daily Herald, January 18, 1918.
Throughout 1918 and 1919, the government purchased the majority of typewriters, and the demand was met by a dedicated core of women who managed not only temporary careers but also homemaking. Nearly 1 million additional women joined the workforce during the conflict, though child care systems had not yet been established. To meet the needs of working mothers, the Underwood factory in Hartford, Connecticut, set up childcare for dozens of children. This also included kindergarten classes, which are pictured above.
The Courant offers an account of Underwood’s efforts, which had been hidden during the war. While the article provides interesting details (such as government purchase figures), it does not narrate the women’s experience. That Underwood provided childcare was unique. Notes Tae H. Kim (Where Women Worked During World War I), “Few employers provided childcare for working mothers or even set aside toilets for female workers.”
How many women remained at the Underwood factory after the war is uncertain, but the typewriter industry did employ women as factory workers, though generally as lower rates of pay. Somewhere in people’s collections, there are machines with a hidden story.
The Hartford Courant (Hartford, Connecticut), January 26, 1919 –
Note: The following excerpt is the portion of the article (see here) that pertains to the Underwood factory.
TYPEWRITERS WIN BATTLES.
What had the typewriters to do with the war? “Oh, a whole lot with the gentlemen who sat on fine mahogany chairs,” may reply some Wise Guys. “But you get down to brass tacks in the trenches,” he would be likely to add, “I don’t see where typewriters come in. Rifles and whizbangs, and all sorts of firewords, yes — but typewriters” — and he would most likely walk away with an airy wave of the hand.
But typewriters had a very great deal to do with the war, and war in its most ugly and noisy aspect, war located decidedly within shelling distance from the front; war where enemy aviators delighted to drop all sorts of cunningly contrived bombs upon typewriters, and the men who sat using them. For typewriters went to the front with the United States army. When the army advanced the typewriters accompanied it. If there were not enough typewriters the army could not advance half as well; it was not as well provisioned, equipped, furnished with munitions, supplied with doctors and medical supplies. In fact the army depended upon its typewriters as much as it did upon its rifles and big guns, for without the orders written on typewriters, usually in duplicate, or several copies as the case might be, and distributed by the proper authorities to the proper transportation units, the various necessary articles would not be brought up. And then it would not be a well-supplied army; as such it could not be expected to be a successful fighting force. If it were not successful it might be a defeated army — then the Allies might have lost the war, instead of having won it. Typewriters were very necessary at the front. Battles were fought with typewriters as well as rifles.
THE UNDERWOOD TYPEWRITER’S SHARE IN WINING THE WAR.
At the beginning of the war the demand of the United States Government for typewriters had not reached the proportions which later became so great that extraordinary steps had to be taken by all manufacturers to meet the situation.
At the start of 1918 the Underwood factory had government orders for a fairly large number of machines for use in the United States, as well as a liberal quantity required by General Pershing for overseas service. Then came the order from Wasthinton speeding up the war program in every conceivable manner — men, munitions, ships and countless articles for the equipment of the army and navy.
Orders came in for a thousand Underwood typewriters at the time. The problems raised might have staggered ordinary concerns. To continue its production despite the lack of men, the company found that many operations could be successfully accomplished by women.
UNDERWOOD PLANT A HUGE NUSERY.
Arrangements were made to furnish women workers with comfortable rest rooms and surroundings. To both the company and the women, the results have been highly satisfactory. Many of the women with children too young to leave at home alone brought them to the factory. Here a large nursery was equipped with cots and toys were provided. The children were placed under the supervision of a competent children’s nurse as well as kindergarten teachers. It was not an uncommon sight to observe seventy-five or more of the little tots playing or sleeping, while their mothers worked.
As the Army and Navy relied on the telegraph and telephone for communication, the government stated plainly that the typewriter was a “line of communication” that must not be cut. Civilians were requested to give preference to the more important demands of government for typewriters.
In connection with the proportion of machines taken by the government as against those placed in civilian use, percentage figures are given. In June, July, August, September and October 1918, the government to 84, 95, 96.5, 90 and 88 per cent, respectively, with only 16, 5, 3.5, 10 and 12 per cent sent out for civilian use. During the year of 1918, the Underwood company furnished the United States and [illegible] governments with over 100,000 typewriters.
About six months ago officials of some 200 concerns manufacturing typewriters or kindred projects met in Washington at the request of the government, which desired to regulate the supplies of fuel, food, steel, oil and essentials. Steps were taken to eliminate non-essential demands. The typewriter industry was organized along these lines: through the work of this organization, the needs of the government were most promptly met.
Possibly the most outstanding feature of the problem that had to be met by the Underwood company was the necessity of caring for small children of its women workers, who, unless they had had their little charges properly cared for at the factory, could not have supplied the labor which enabled the factory to keep up, or advance its production. That the company made a success of its entrance into the day nursery, kindergarten and child welfare work would seem to be borne out by the pictures of the “kiddies” who are to be seen engaged in the pleasing occupations of play, or fathered together in comfortable quarters for kindergarten work, or eating — all exercises which are thoroughly enjoyed by our immature future voters and struggling suffragettes, of potent possibilities. This form of industrial work did not do the company any harm, and there can be no question that it was of considerable benefit to the children themselves.
It is said that the Underwood plant is now running full blast, that workmen released from munition plants are finding excellent positions awaiting them: that the factory is expected to regain its former maximum daily production of typewriters, or even more as soon as the required number of men and women can be trained for the work.
© 2026, Mark Adams. All rights reserved.
Recent Comments