Wednesday, May 23, 2007

On July 25, 1888, the first typing contest was held to determine which, McGurrin or Taub, was the fastest. McGurrin's ten-finger typing won easily over Taub, who used four fingers and looked at the keys when he typed. Women didn't compete in these first speed contests because there were very few female secretaries in those days. But they broke into office work shortly thereafter when the YWCA started teaching typing to women. -- R. C. Cassingham: The Dvorak Keyboard, Freelance Communications, Arcata (1986).

His name was Louis Traub, not Taub, and he was an eight-finger typist on Caligraph No.2 as I mentioned before. Furthermore, women did compete in these first speed contests. YWCA of the city of New York had already started free classes for typewriting since October, 1881 (cf. "Free Educational Classes", Eleventh Annual Report of the Young Women's Christian Association of the City of New York (January 1882), pp.11-13). On August 1, 1888, a speed contest of typewriters, under the auspices of the Metropolitan Stenographers' Association, was competed at New York by two ladies and two gentlemen: Miss M. C. Grant, Miss Mae E. Orr, Mr. Emanuel Myerson, and Mr. Frank Edward McGurrin (cf. "The Metropolitan Typewriter Contest", The Phonographic World, Vol.3, No.12 (August 1888), p.263). On August 13, 1888, five ladies and five gentlemen competed a typewriter tournament, which was held at Toronto as a part of Seventh Annual Convention of the Canadian Shorthand Society. In the tournament Miss Mae E. Orr, a two-finger typist on Remington No.2, won the gold medal against Mr. Frank Edward McGurrin (cf. "Canadian Shorthand Society", The Cosmopolitan Shorthander, Vol.9, No.8 (September 1888), pp.210-215).

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home