The first patent was acquired by an Englishman named Henry Mills in 1714. The patent was worded as "an artificial machine or method for the impressing or transcribing of letters singly or progressively one after another".
However, the first typewriter was not actually created until 1808 by an Italian man named Pellegrino Turri for his blind friend Countess Carolina Fantoni da Fivizzano. There are no photographs or drawings of the machine, but there is evidence of letters that were written on the machine.
A somewhat hard to read letter sent by the Countess
Christopher Latham Sholes was accredited with inventing the first typewriter in 1876, and his second model, patented that same year, could easily type faster than it would take to write with pen.
He signed with the manufacturer Remington and Sons, and this is one of the first typewriters of theirs that went on the market:
Christopher Latham Sholes is also accredited with inventing QWERTY keyboards.
The final typewriter that was incredibly memorable was The Daugherty Visible, which was invented in 1891. What makes this typewriter special is the ability to see the typebars hit the paper, instead of resting below the platen. This way the user wouldn't have to wait until the next line or two to see if they made a mistake/ in general they are able to see what they are typing almost simultaneously.
All this talk is important, but the best way to understand what I'm talking about is to watch this short video of how typewriters work:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkUXn5bOwzk
Finally, let's talk about what typewriters did for the development of communication over time. Of course, one point I already touched on was the invention of the QWERTY keyboard, the classic set-up that makes it easy for us to type with a "home base" and something that is universal to most english speakers. The typewriter sped up the process of writing, and made it easier for the consumer to read, versus trying to decipher a possibly difficult handwritten note.
One negative is that it was hard to fix mistakes, in comparison to a word document on a computer where it can be continuously edited and you only need to print one page versus retyping a whole page on a typewriter, or using white-out.
Typewriters helped women make a stronger presence in the workplace, they were able to work on the skill, and it gave them an opportunity to work in an office versus factories. There were jobs specifically geared towards transcribing on a typewriter.
Like most inventions, when the typewriter was first introduced, it was incredibly expensive for most of the general public, and was mainly used by businesses at first, but eventually, as they found ways to make the manufacturing price less expensive, the typewriter was a household item, and now a collectable for many fanatics.
The typewriter led to the eventual invention of the computer, and was an important stepping stone to the world of communication we know today!
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