Sholes

The Sholes Visible was the last typewriter that Christopher Latham Sholes invented. This patent was not turned over to the Remington Typewriter Company, as previous inventions had been, but was taken by his children to promote and manufacture. Louis Sholes, one of his 10 children, took up that challenge and started the C Latham Sholes Typewriter Company in 1891, about 3 years after his father's death, for the purpose of manufacturing and selling this typewriter; however, I have yet to find a direct source that suggests that any typewriter was ever manufactured by that company. In 1900, August D. Meiselbach, well known at the time for bicycle manufacturing, purchased the patent from the C. Latham Sholes Typewriter Company and arranged for the manufacture of the Sholes Visible. The typewriter did not do well in the market. A. D. Meiselbach went through several management changes, and eventually was sold to the Visible Typewriter Company in Kenosha, WI. Finally, in 1905, the company went bankrupt and manufacture of the Sholes Visible ended. You can see a slightly different variation of the machine from our own model pictured in the advertisement to your left. This machine went through a few subtle iterations throughout it's short 4 year manufacturing life, and articles claim that the manufacturers were never quite happy with the final design of the machine. The advertisement was from "The Living Church Annual: A Church Cyclopaedia and Almanac" of 1903. One might imagine by looking at the appearance that the keys seem to line up looking somewhat like an organ, the design of which may appeal to the Catholic Dioceses of that area of the country.