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

[treasurer.nfbidaho at gmail.com]

Kevin, thanks for sending that to the list!  Somehow I missed it the first
time.
I get Peggi's newsletter and I have to agree that your version is very
nicely written! With the final section titled "the rest of the story" my
mind went straight to the verbal patois of radio-great, Paul Harvey. I went
back and re-read your article with Paul Harvey's voice narrating it.

Best,

DON WINIECKI he, him, his <https://www.mypronouns.org/>

Treasurer, National Federation of the Blind of Idaho
Notary Public, Idaho 20252314

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On Mon, Jun 23, 2025 at 10:55 AM Kevin Pirnie via NFB-Idaho <
nfb-idaho at nfbnet.org> wrote:

> 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
>
> admin
>
> Comments closed
>
> 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/
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