Remington Noiseless Portable Typewriter

Entrepreneurial inventors began experimenting with noiseless typewriter mechanisms as early as 1896, but it was not until the 1920s that one would find commercial success, with thanks to Canadian-born mechanical engineer George Gould Going. This model, from 1935, is stamped with the number of Gould’s 1919 patent, one of the thirty-two he filed for noiseless typewriters. Filed with the aptly named Noiseless Typewriter Company, the patent notes, among other improvements, ridding the typewriter of “objectionable recurrent noises of staccato impact by the type bars against the backed paper.” The Noiseless Typewriter Company joined forces with Remington Rand in 1924 to form Remington Noiseless Corporation, a subsidiary of Remington that manufactured a variety of “noiseless” machines over the next few decades. Advertisements boasted the typewriters as “noiseless, speedy, vibrationless.” Though not entirely silent, the Noiseless machines were quieter than standard typewriters. Regardless, some writers and office workers complained of missing the click-clack response to their key strokes, and Rand appropriated the Noiseless’s successful streamlined style, delineated by the rounded bar above the keyboard and overall sleek surfaces, to purposefully noisy models.

Remington Noiseless Portable Typewriter; England; metal, plastic; Overall: 11.2 x 30 x 29.3 cm (4 7/16 x 11 13/16 x 11 9/16 in.); Gift of Barry Friedman and Patricia Pastor; 1986-99-18