Born December 12, 1845 in Theresa, N.Y., Byron A. Brooks attended the local village school during the summer and winter – though a good part of his education, and inspiration, came from the local village itself including its fields, waters, shops and factories. His grandfather, Dr. James Brooks, was the first physician in Theresa and his father was "well known as one of nature's nobleman, 'an honest man.' As John Haddock wrote in The Growth of a Century regarding Brooks's early years—

(Brooks) began to teach a country school in the town of Clayton before he was 16, and the next winter near Cape Vincent. He attended Gouverneur Wesleyan Seminary, whence he graduated in 1866, and went to teach in the Antwerp Liberal Literary Institute.

After college and working on what became the Remington No. 2 typewriter, Byron A. Brooks made the improved "Brooks Typewriter" and published books including King Saul, or A Tragedy in 1876; Those Children and Their Teachers in 1882; the popular, fictionalized yet very recognizable Theresa-inspired Phil Vernon and His Schoolmasters in 1882; and Earth Revisited, in 1893, perhaps his most well-known work that delved into speculative science fiction.

Contributor: 47305175 (47305175)

Byron A.Brooks has a secure place among the greatest typewriter inventors of all time. In typewriter terms, his No 1 claim to fame is that he invented the mechanisms which allowed typewriters to first type in both upper and lower case letters. But that is far from his only claim. Indeed, Brooks may well be better known today for his visionary 1893 novel Earth Revisited.

Most published typewriter histories are confused on the details of Brooks' major breakthrough, with what we call the Remington 2. This is said to have resulted in the first "real typewriter" (although visible writing was still not possible, the Remington 2, not the Sholes and Glidden or the Remington 1, is regarded the proper starting point for the typewriters we know today). The end of "capitals only" typing required not just upper and lower case characters to be embossed on the typeslugs, but, to allow for both of them, the lateral movement of the platen, which was adjusted back and forward by a shift key. On looking at Brook's patent, it is clear that he incorporated both of these elements in his one design.

The Remington 2, as we know it, was referred to by Remington itself at the time as its "Model 4". William Ozmun Wyckoff, then a sales agent for Remington, had started to produce a publication called The Type-writer Magazine, and with regard to the Model 4 he declared in an editorial in the January 1878 issue, "We are happy to inform … the public generally that the typewriter is now perfected". "There was no longer any achievement left for the typewriter industry, because the Model 4 was everything the machine could ever be," wrote Bruce Bliven Jnr, recording Wyckoff's claim in Bliven's The Wonderful Writing Machine (1954).

bio written by Antwerp History Buff (#47305175)

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Meanwhile the typewriter itself was about to undergo a great development. It is hardly a coincidence that the first school to teach typewriting and the first typewriter which won a wide popularity both appeared in the same year, 1878. This machine was the Model 2 Remington, the first typewriter which wrote both capitals and small letters. This first shift-key model, like the Model 1 of 1874, was the product of several master minds. Jenne, [82]of course, had a big hand in it; so also did other men who had labored with him on the first model. The problem of printing both capitals and small letters, with the standard keyboard arrangement, was solved by the combination of the cylinder shifting device, invented by Lucien S. Crandall, with type bars carrying two types, a capital and a small face of the same letter, invented by Byron A. Brooks. The shift-key machine proved to be a long step in advance, and the typewriter soon began to gain in popular favor.

https://www.typewritercollector.com/collectible/brooks.htm

Brooks Typewriter

Brooks typewriter

1895

In an effort to create a visible writing machine, the Brooks typewriter had its typebars positioned at the rear, behind the platen, and striking downward towards the paper. This arangement is commonly known as the backstroke method. Paper handling on the Brooks was inconvenient, a sheet of paper was rolled into a holder behind the keyboard where it fed into the platen. Visibility was limited to only a few lines of type before the paper returned into the paper holder. Inking was by ribbon. Some models of the Brooks were sold as the Eclipse, manufactured by the SS White Dental Company of Staten Island, NY and later by the Brady Manufacturing company in Brooklyn, NY. The Brooks typewriter was short lived and is considered a very rare and desirable typewriter.

The Brooks typewriter was invented by the prolific inventor Byron A. Brooks whose career dates back to the early days of the typewriter industry where he worked on the Sholes and Glidden type-writer. It was there, while working for the Remington Typewriter Company that he was credited with the design of the shift key that was originally used on the Remington 2 typewriter in 1878 and is still in use on modern keyboards today. Byron Brooks is also credited with the invention of the Crown Type-Writer, an index design as well as the Travis typewriter, a keyboard design, both using typewheels to print.

Contributor: 47305175

Letter from Thomas Alva Edison to Byron Alden Brooks, May 26th, 1884

[Untitled]

1884-05-26

Correspondence

Thomas Edison National Historical Park

D8416BRB

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Letter from Byron Alden Brooks to Thomas Alva Edison, May 22nd, 1884

1884-05-22

Correspondence

Thomas Edison National Historical Park

D8403ZDN

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SOURCE: https://edison.rutgers.edu/digital/search?query=%22Byron+Alden+Brooks%22&query_type=keyword&submit_search=Search

Contributor: 47305175

1888 - 1894

National Meter Company

New York, NY, US

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Byron Alden Brooks (1845 - 1911), one of the more celebrated inventors of typewriters, a central figure in the development of the Brooks, People's, National and Travis, as well as the 1878 shift-key that was first implemented on Remington's No.2 model, also invented the Crown featured here. To the first of the two Crown models, the one with the boxier frame, Brooks was awarded U.S. patent no.389,095 on March 6, 1888. Though, it should be noted that Brooks began working on it as early as May 16, 1881, as evident by the application date of U.S. patent no.272,023 for the Crown's typewheel.

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Education

As a boy Byron devised and applied several successful improvements in the mill machinery and further indicated his interest in his eager study of mathematics, in which science he was far enough advanced to teach at the Antwerp (New York) Academy, when at his father's death in 1861 he had to contribute to the support of the family.

In 1866 he entered Wesleyan University at Middletown, Connecticut, where he supported himself by tutoring. Though he lost a year through illness, he completed his work in time to graduate with his class in 1871.

Career

After graduating from the Wesleyan University at Middletown, Connecticut, from 1871 to 1872 Byron Brooks taught at Dobbs Ferry, New York, where he was principal of the Union Free School. From there he went to New York City where he was assistant editor of the National Quarterly Review (1873) and a teacher and principal in the public schools.

As a writer and educator he became interested in the possibilities of the typewriter and as one having some mechanical skill, he studied the machine and attempted improvements. For his first successful improvement he received Patent No. 202, 923, April 30, 1878, the feature of which is the location of both a capital and a small letter on the same striking lever and the shifting of the paper roller by a key to bring either the large or small letter into printing position.

The most important improvement remained to be made, namely, the provision for visible writing, and though Brooks sought to incorporate this feature in a machine which he manufactured and sold as the Brooks Typewriter, he succeeded in making visible only two lines of printing at a time and for lack of any other outstanding features the machine was discontinued.

He sold this patent for $7, 000 to the Remingtons who immediately incorporated the improvement in their next model, the Remington No. 2, the first machine to write other than capital letters and the one from which the universal use of the typewriter dates.

In 1900 the Brooks Typewriter Company was sold to the Union Typewriter Company, which Brooks served as patent expert to the time of his death.

At the time of his death in Brooklyn, New York, he was also working on a printing telegraph.

Contributor: 47305175 (47305175)

Brooklyn Terrace in the Thousand Island Park was completed in 1892 for Byron A. Brooks, a famous author, teacher and inventor originally from nearby Theresa N.Y. A graduate of Wesleyan University of Middletown, Conn., in 1867, he returned to New York for 10 years to teach and in 1874 invented a new typewriter, using both upper and lower case lettering, which became known as the "Remington No. 2" typewriter and went on to make millions for its proprietors.

The story behind Byron A. Brooks's involvement with the typewriter was documented in an article posted to his findagrave.com page, of unknown source, which states—

In the fall of 1875 Mr. Brooks saw his first typewriter. He told the proprietor it was a machine he had had (sic) in mind for some time, and that he thought he could improve upon it. The proprietor said he would only be too glad to have him do so and invited our Theresa boy to try.

The machine at the time printed only capital letters and was a financial failure. Mr. Brooks wanted to know if it would remedy the matter if it would print both capital and small letters with the same key. The reply was that it would be the making of the enterprise. Mr. Brooks went out and in half an hour invented the platen, which was the most important and invaluable refinement ever made on the typewriter. This afterward became known as the Remington typewriter.

At about that time, William O. Wyckoff, a stenographer for the New York State Supreme Court, came upon the typewriter and saw the use for it, as well as his own ability to sell it. Wyckoff then became a salesman for Remington while maintaining his stenographer role for the State through 1882 when typewriters became his primary profession. Wyckoff, of course, went on to form his home company and built the famous Wyckoff Villa on Carelton Island near Cape Vincent that recently sold and is in preliminary planning stages for extensive renovations.

Though he made his home in Brooklyn, Byron A. Brooks's heart was still in the Thousand Islands region. In 1891, The Daily on the St. Lawrence published a short article of what would become the 5 bedroom, 1.5 bathroom Brooklyn Terrace at the Thousand Island Park—

One of the best sales of lots at Thousand Island Park since the boom in 1882 was consummated last Saturday. Dr. F. W. Bruce, of Carthage, sold to Byron A. Brooks, of Brooklyn, N.Y., a lot on East Coast Avenue, opposite Remington Point, for $1,000. Mr. Brooks is the inventor of the celebrated Remington type writer, and also the new Brooks type writer, and is perfecting plans for the erection of one of the finest cottages on the Park. It will be of the Swiss style; first story, blue stone; second shingle, and gothic roof.

In 1894, following a meeting at the Thousand Island Park Tabernacle, Byron A. Brooks held a reception for then Governor Roswell P. Flower at his E. Coast Ave. summer cottage.

Byron A. Brooks's first wife, Sarah Ethel Davis Brooks, died at their summer home in the Thousand Island Park in September of 1904 at the age of 59. Byron A. Brooks remarried sometime after to Ella Ball Brooks.

Byron A. Brooks himself passed away September 28, 1911 in their Brooklyn Home and was buried at Indian Hill Cemetery in Middletown, Conn. Less than a year after his death, his son gifted some of his father's works to the Theresa Free Library. The Watertown Daily Times reported on May 9, 1912–

Theresa, May 9 — There has just been received at the Theresa Free Library a gift of 20 books of much value, but greater than value is the fact that they were from a family that have a high regard for the town and that they were, in a way, from one who always spoke with pride when he mentioned his birthplace and home of his boyhood, Theresa. And for this last item will they be the greater treasured by the officers of the institution.

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SOURCE: https://memoryln.net/places/united-states/new-york/orleans/historic-home/brooklyn-terrace-thousand-island-park-1000-islands/

Contributor: 47305175 (47305175)

The maroon Travis Typewriter was a burst of color in an otherwise drab industry full of typewriters finished in black. However, I should mention that at least one all-black example is known. The Travis was produced by the Philadelphia Typewriter Company of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was invented by Byron A. Brooks who also invented the Crown and the Brooks.

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SOURCE: https://www.antikeychop.com/travistypewriter

Contributor: 47305175 (47305175)

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https://www.typewritercollector.com/collectible/brooks.htm

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https://type-writer.org/?p=5690

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https://www.antikeychop.com/brookstypewriter

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https://www.antikeychop.com/_files/ugd/0c3e9e_fb808bc8abab48548cb8191de08843b4.pdf