How Your Keyboard’s Layout Was Popularized By A Factory In Ilion

If you're reding this now, chances are you are using a device that has a keyboard. From smartphones to laptops, the keyboard layout has one thing in common, QWERTY, named after the first six letters on its top left. 

Did you know, Ilion New York is home to the mass production and commercialization of the very first QWERTY layout typewriters.

And while the layout wasn't invented here; it gained its mass appeal in the Mohawk Valley.

a close up of an old fashioned typewriter

QWERTY's Roots

The popular layout traces back to its inventor Christopher Latham Sholes who had developed an early typewriter prototype along with the QWERTY layout.

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In 1873, the patent rights were acquired by financial backers who turned to E. Remington & Sons to mass-produce the machine.

E. Remington & Sons, a famous firearm and sewing machine manufacturer based in Ilion saw a decline in gun sales following the American Civil War.

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To keep their factory running and workers employed, they looked for new products to manufacture.

So, on March 1st of 1873, Remington officially began manufacturing the typewriters. 

The word remington on a vintage typewriter

The Reminton Model 1

Released in 1874, it featured the four-row QWERTY layout on the top left of the board.

While following models like the Remington No. 2 helped bring the layout globally, it was the Ilion factory that successfully transitioned the QWERTY keyboard from an inventor's prototype into a mass-produced commercial standard.

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So, the next time you look at your keyboard on a phone or laptop, that standard layout can be traced back to a factory in the Mohawk Valley.