World

The World typewriter was an index machine invented by John Becker, and advertised to assist with letter writing. At "12 inches long, 6 inches wide, and 2.5 inches high", weiging "3.5 pounds", according to the trade catalog posted to this site, one can imagine that this would be a handy device for such a use, wherever one may be. According to Mares' History of the Typewriter, around 17,000 machines were produced in the first year on the market, and as per the trade catalog, nearly 50,000 had been sold in the first two years. This highly successful low cost index machine is probably one of my favorites in terms of appearance. Ours has 77 characters, which is cited as the number of characters in a magazine ad put out by Pope Manufacturing Co. in 1889. Earlier double-case models had 72 characters, and an improved model released by the Typewriter Improvement Co. was made with 78 characters. The center picture on your left is taken from the trade catalog showing its use in an office setting.