Friday, December 6, 2013

Typewriter Factories Map

This isn't really that useful, but it's fun to see where our favorite typewriters were built. I've been working on this in Google Map Engine over the past few days and currently have 69 factories marked on the map across 5 continents. I've gathered my information mainly from Will Davis's Portable Typewriter Reference and Robert Messenger's oz.Typewriter. My current goal with this map is to mark the location of every typewriter factory that was producing any decent quantity of machines during the 20th century. I'm not counting factories where typewriters were assembled from parts made in another factory, like the British-built Remingtons. It's better to view it in Google Maps Engine.



There are three fields to each point on the map--manufacturer (and model if the manufacturer is not immediately recognizable), location, and year production began there. If you notice any errors or want to add more information to the map, I can add you as an editing user if you have a Google account. (contact: schreibstang at gmail dot com)

Trivia:

Northernmost: Facit (Åtvitaberg, Sweden)
Southernmost: Olivetti (Johannesburg, South Africa)

Question:

Was the Brazilian-made Hermes Baby built at the Olivetti's São Paulo factory?

Full version in Google Maps Engine

9 comments:

Richard P said...

What a great idea!

Smith-Corona had a factory in Cortland, NY.

The Oliver factory was actually in Woodstock, IL, although company HQ was in Chicago. (Also made in Woodstock: the Emerson and of course, as you have noted, the Woodstock.)

Richard P said...

The Spanish Patria/Amaya was made in Eibar, Spain.



Richard P said...

The French MAP typewriter was made in Saint-Denis, a suburb of Paris.

Bill M said...

Nice map. Thanks.
Olivetti made mostly word processors in PA until changing over to calculators and computers. Many of the AT&T PCs were made there from what I was able to find out from my recent trip.

Scott K said...

Oh, this is very cool.

Unknown said...

@Richard P

Thanks for the information! If you know of any dates to add to the map, that would help too.

@Bill M

I didn't think they made any manual typewriters there, but I have it on the map for now. I might take it off though.

Fer Andrade said...

Excellent map! Olivetti had two factories in Argentina: the first one in Ramos Mejía (founded in the mid late 50) and second in Merlo (1963-1978) both in the state of Bueos Aires. A third factory, called "Establecimientos Mecánicos Argentina" manufactured Remington typewriters.

Steve Snow said...

Good job! This is an important resource of info

Anonymous said...

Such a great idea! Thanks for doing this!

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