*Tick*, *tick*, *tick*, *ching!*

With the holiday season underway there are countless Christmas cards and letters being sent across town and across the country.  Most Christmas cards are handwritten but if you include a letter it is probably typed.  These days people use computers for their typing needs but not that long ago typewriters were commonplace.  We have a wonderful example of a Remington Portable typewriter in the Virgil and Thelma Linam Collection.

Some of the old advertisements say that the Remington Portable was the smallest and lightest typewriter with a standard keyboard.  While not the first portable typewriter, according to Xavier University, it was the first one with a four-bank keyboard.  The Remington Portable #1 was manufactured from October 1920-January 1925 and in 1924 cost $60.  In contrast to the plain black typewriter, the #1 DeLuxe with gold-colored sides, cost $75.  In order for it to fit into its case, usually made of wood covered in black cloth, the typewriter had a “folding-typebar” mechanism to raise and lower the typebars.  The portable typewriter had everything that the desk model had but they were able to fit it into a sleek box about three inches high (portabletypewriters.co.uk).  The small, streamlined size fit well with the Art Deco movement of the 1920’s and 1930’s.  The Remington factory had to meet such demand that they boasted they could manufacture a typewriter every minute.  The demand for portable typewriters lasted for more than fifty years.

If you think about today, the demand for smaller and smaller computers is much like that of the portable typewriter.  People want the freedom to move around and yet take conveniences along with them.  Their portable typewriters have turned into our iPads and tablets.  Stop by the Western Heritage Museum Complex and Lea County Cowboy Hall of Fame to see many of the conveniences of the early 20^th century in this area.