Underwood

Underwood, based in New York City and with factories in Connecticut originally made carbon paper. In 1874 they started to make typewriter ribbons for Remington. When Remington decided to make their own ribbons Underwood decided to make typewriters - and began a couple of decades of rivalry between the two companies.

Underwood's typewriter was invented by Franz Xaver Wagner and machines manufactured between 1896 and 1900 had Wagner Typewriter Co on the back. This front-strike machine gave visible type and was smaller and neater than a Remington.   By 1915 Underwood salesmen claimed they were making more typewriters than anyone else. At its peak the Hartford, Connecticut factory was the largest in the world and claimed to make a typewriter every minute   (a claim Remington also made).

Underwood branched out into adding machines in 1910. They also noticed the rise of Frank Rose and Standard Typewriter with it's Corona portable machines. Underwood bought a design by Lee Burridge of Sun Typewriter who had died in 1915 and after a delay caused by military production for World War 1 started manufacturing it as the Underwood Standard Portable. Although the machines all-steel construction made them heavier than the Corona they sold very well, the only problem being that their 3-bank construction was unlike the Underwood desktop's 4 bank keyboard. Underwood corrected this with a 4-bank model launched in 1926.

In the 1930s and 40's Underwood dropped its enmity with Remington - now Remington-Rand. They exchanged patents. Noiseless Portable was a collaboration, Remington made the machines but they were also available badged Underwood - (something familiar from the printer industry use of engines today).

Underwood's lack of innovation in the 1930s may be understandable given the economic downturn, typewriters sell to both homes and offices. Homes are interested in something with a good reputation at a low price. Offices that will pay a bit extra to get better looking documents and faster typing. IBM and Remington-Rand both had electric typewriters in the 1930s, they didn't sell in volume at that time, but those companies were getting an understanding of the product. Underwood was failing to innovate.

It seems Underwood had an opportunity to patent an electric typewriter but failed to do so, leaving the field open for IBM (Amidei et al 2009)

During World War 2 Underwood turned their production entirely over to rifles. IBM and Remington-Rand both likewise turned substantial parts of their production to war work, but they also produced higher-end bomb sights, equipment to produce almanacs and artillery firing tables - which is where the ENIAC project and the modern computer come from. Underwood produced M1 Carbines and at the end of the war switched back to typewriters. After the war Underwood also seem to have prefered to pay high dividends and failed to invest in either product development or their manufacturing capabilities.

Underwood appreciated the connection between their industry and computers. They bought Electronic Computer Corporation (ECC) of Brooklyn and invested $12 million in an 18 month effort to diversify (then quite a substantial sum) but finding they lacked the necessary experise gave up.

Underwood did have an all-electric typewriter model by 1949. (It took Smith-Corona and Royal four or five years to develop a product and Triumph-Adler five (Amidei et al 2009).

The Underwood Electric 565 was made in Japan. This seems to have been a response to a rising number of imports. Amidei et al say foreign import share of the manual typewriter market rose from 15% to 40%. By the 1960s sales of electric typewriters overtook manual typewriters, but the main beneficiary was IBM.

Underwoods top management changed several times in the 1950s

In 1960 Underwood introduced the Model 18 portable, which sold half a million in 3 years. However in 1959 Olivetti bought a controlling stake and completed the merger in 1963. Camillo Olivetti had visited the Underwood factories during his trip to the US in the 1890s and his son Adriano was interested in Underwood. What Adriano may have intended for Underwood is not known. Olivetti invested heavily in improving the Connecticut factories so they weren't intent on just using the Underwood name and distribution network as their bridgehead into the US market. Ultimately this is what happened, however, and the Underwood brand disappeared.

Award Winning

Underwood typewriters were award winning machines in their time, but essentially they never entered the modern age, nor do they seem to be the prototype of any technology still used. They are not of great interest in this overview, where the interests are things like the concept of word-processing and the origins of the printer industry.