[NFB-Idaho] The Machine That Gave Voice to Silence

[Kevin Pirnie]

Goodd Morning;
Some of you may have received an email this morning from Peggy Chung with
an interesting article celebrating the history of the typewriter and its
connection to the blind. It is very similar to one that I wrote and
published on our SRV chapter website over a year ago.

I have copied our chapter article below and provided the link for those
interested.

Peggy's article is good but I believe you will discover that our chapter's
article offers important additional details and context.


Best,
Kevin


The Machine That Gave Voice to Silence
March 23, 2024

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The Machine That Gave Voice to Silence

When Darkness Fell on Tuscany
Picture, if you will, the year 1801. Napoleon’s armies are marching across
Europe, Thomas Jefferson has just become America’s third president, and in
a villa nestled in the Italian countryside, a brilliant inventor is
wrestling with an impossible problem.
The problem has a name: Carolina Fantoni. Beautiful, intelligent, and blind
at the age of twenty.
Her story begins like a fairy tale. Born to nobility in the hills of
Tuscany, Carolina seemed destined for a life of privilege and happiness.
Then came the wedding to Count Domenico, the gradual loss of sight, and the
crushing isolation that followed.
The Inventor’s Obsession
Pellegrino Turri lived next door, and he was hopelessly, desperately in
love. But this wasn’t just any lovesick neighbor—Turri was a mechanical
genius, a man who saw problems where others saw impossibilities.
The problem was communication. Every letter Carolina received had to be
read aloud by servants. Every response had to be dictated. There were no
secrets, no privacy, no intimate thoughts that weren’t shared with the
entire household.
Turri’s solution would change the world.
The Birth of Silent Communication
Iron Fingers and Inked Dreams
Working in secret, Turri created something unprecedented: a mechanical
device with keys that could impress letters onto paper. But creating the
machine was only half the challenge. How do you make marks visible when the
writer cannot see?
His answer was revolutionary. Turri invented what we now call carbon
paper—sheets coated with ink that could transfer impressions. The setup was
ingenious: the carbon sheet went between two pieces of paper, creating both
an original and a copy with each keystroke.
For Carolina, it meant freedom. For the first time since losing her sight,
she could write privately, communicate directly, express her heart without
witnesses.
But here’s what makes this story even more remarkable—Turri wasn’t alone in
his mission.
The Secret Society of Inventors
The Patent That Started a Revolution
In 1714, nearly a century before Turri’s breakthrough, an Englishman named
Henry Mill had received a patent from Queen Anne herself. His “artificial
machine” was designed, he wrote, specifically to help “persons blind or
whose sight is imperfect.”
Mill’s machine was never built, but his vision was clear: technology should
serve those society had forgotten.
By 1806, Ralph Wedgwood in England was patenting his own “Stylographic
Writer” along with his “carbonated paper”—remarkably similar to Turri’s
innovations. His stated purpose? To assist the blind in writing
independently.
The American Dreamer
Across the Atlantic, Charles Thurber was building his typing machine in a
Connecticut firearms factory. His goal, stated clearly in his patent:
“aiding the blind and the nervous in communication.”
The machine was a disaster—too clunky, too complicated. Not a single unit
sold. But the dream persisted.
The Pastor’s Peculiar Ball
Denmark’s Mechanical Miracle
In Copenhagen, a pastor named Hans Rasmus Malling-Hansen ran an institute
for deaf and blind students. Every day, he watched brilliant minds
struggling to communicate with the world beyond their disabilities.
His solution looked like nothing anyone expected—a brass hemisphere covered
with keys, resembling a giant pincushion. Students nicknamed it “the
writing ball.”
But this peculiar machine had a secret: it was the fastest typewriter ever
invented. While other inventors worried about keys jamming together,
Malling-Hansen’s design made such problems impossible.
The Philosopher’s Epiphany
One of these remarkable machines found its way to Germany, where a
philosopher named Friedrich Nietzsche was losing his battle with failing
eyesight. His family hoped the writing ball might help him continue his
work.
Nietzsche hated it at first. He was set in his ways, dependent on scribes
and secretaries. But as his vision deteriorated, he began to appreciate
what the machine offered—independence.
He wrote sixty manuscripts on that brass ball, including these prophetic
lines:
“The writing ball is a thing like me:
Made of iron yet easily twisted on journeys.
Patience and tact are required in abundance,
As well as fine fingers to use us.”
The American Revolution
The Editor’s Second Career
In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a newspaper editor named Christopher Latham Sholes
was growing restless. President Lincoln had appointed him collector of the
port—a prestigious position that left him with far too much time on his
hands.
Sholes began tinkering. He’d heard about the European machines, the
attempts to help the blind write independently. He thought he could do
better.
On June 23, 1868, Sholes and his partners received their patent. Their
machine’s primary purpose, they declared, was to assist the blind in
writing.
The Author Who Changed Publishing
One of the first customers was a writer who understood the power of new
technology. Samuel Clemens—Mark Twain—purchased one of the expensive
Remington machines and used it to type the manuscript for “Life on the
Mississippi.”
It was the first typewritten manuscript ever submitted to a publisher,
beginning a revolution that would transform the literary world.
The Schools That Opened Doors
Teaching Independence
By the 1890s, something extraordinary was happening in schools for the
blind across America. Administrators were purchasing typewriters—not as
curiosities, but as tools of liberation.
Illinois installed them in 1892. New York began formal typewriting
instruction in 1897. Students who had been taught to accept limitations
suddenly discovered possibilities.
These weren’t just typing lessons—they were lessons in hope.
The Young Woman Who Toured America
In 1901, Elizabeth Miller embarked on a journey that would have been
unthinkable just decades earlier. A recent graduate of New York’s Institute
for the Blind, she spent her summer traveling with the Remington Typewriter
Company.
Her job? Demonstrating typewriters to crowds of sighted businessmen at
exhibitions and fairs across the country.
Picture the scene: a young blind woman standing before hundreds of
skeptical businessmen at the Pan American Exhibition, her fingers dancing
across the keys, proving that this machine wasn’t just practical—it was
revolutionary.
Elizabeth’s demonstrations did more than sell typewriters. They sold a
vision of a world where disability didn’t mean limitation.
The Thread That Connects
>From Love Letters to Corporate Memos
What began with Carolina’s secret letters in an Italian villa became the
backbone of modern business communication. What started as one man’s
desperate attempt to give voice to the woman he loved evolved into a tool
that democratized written communication.
The typewriter’s real revolution wasn’t making writing faster or neater. It
was making independence possible for those society had written off.
The Legacy in Your Pocket
Today, you carry a descendant of Carolina’s machine in your pocket. Every
text message, every email, every social media post traces its lineage back
to that first typing machine in Tuscany.
The keyboard under your fingers? It owes its existence to inventors who
believed that everyone—everyone—deserves to have their voice heard.

The Rest of the Story
So the next time you type a message, remember Carolina Fantoni, struggling
to communicate in her darkened world. Remember Pellegrino Turri, driven by
love to solve the impossible. Remember Pastor Malling-Hansen, watching his
students discover their potential. Remember Elizabeth Miller, standing
before crowds and proving that limitations exist only in our minds.
The machine that connects our modern world was born not from corporate
boardrooms or government laboratories, but from the simple human desire to
be heard, to be understood, to communicate without barriers.
>From a love story in Italy to the device in your hands today—that’s the
real history of human connection.
And now you know… the rest of the story.
— In memory of voices that refused to be silenced

Source: NFB Idaho Falls March 23, 2024
https://nfbidahofalls.org/the-machine-that-gave-voice-to-silence/