UNION TYPEWRITER COMPANY

Very much has been written both in the literature and online about the UNION TYPEWRITER COMPANY, that early "typewriter trust" that both controlled the major builders in the US and fixed prices for standard typewriters at one hundred dollars. It would be difficult to add much to what's been written -- but perhaps a brief timeline of events would help.

1893: Having seen its position of "leading typewriter manufacturer" eroded somewhat by effective competition, the manufacturers of the Remington Standard machine decide to propose merger with several other large makers of the day. Smith Premier Typewriter Company, The American Writing Machine Company (makers of the Caligraph,) the Yost Writing Machine Company, Densmore and Brooks all merge to form UNION WRITING MACHINE COMPANY, which would later in 1908 rename itself as the UNION TYPEWRITER COMPANY. The owners of Remington, having the most capital and the most investment (Wyckoff, Seamans & Benedict) essentially control the trust. Seamans is made president of the company. Union controls the majority of the market, price and profit in typewriters.

1900: Engineers and consultants for Union begin to file slews of patents for new "visible" machines, in response not only to the new Wagner Typewriter Company's Underwood, but also to the Oliver and the Pittsburg which are all making waves in the normally-upstrike waters of Union (all its machines, save the Brooks, are blind-writers.)

1903-1904: The four Smith brothers, formerly in control of Smith Premier but now subjugated to Union control, attempt to convince Union to allow production of a visible machine. Unable to budge the Union owners, they leave and immediately form a new L.C. Smith & Bros. Typewriter Company with NO association to Union whatsoever. Union was already in the process of developing a new machine (the Monarch) and a new company to handle it (Monarch Typewriter Company) and sped up its efforts. It also, apparently was forced to move the Smith Premier works to a new location with a factory built in the absolute utmost of haste (qv Carl Mares.) In late 1904 the Monarch appears and immediately sells wonderfully.

ca. 1906: American Writing Machine ceases production of the final New Century Caligraph machine. It does not convert to building "visible" machines but rather converts to rebuilding typewriters, to allow Union to compete with the many unrelated firms offering cut-rate rebuilt machines at that time, which Union felt were damaging its ability to sell brand-new machines.

1908-1909: Union Typewriter acquires Pittsburg Writing Machine and Wahl Adding Machine. It also, finally, releases totally new "visible" machines from Remington, Smith Premier and Yost. Upstrike machines continue a few years, but sales immediately falter to near-zero levels. New competition is beginning to be felt, from Fox and from Royal. Also, some consolidation inside Union begins during this time; for example, the general offices of Monarch Typewriter are moved from Syracuse to New York during this time.

1913: This year sees the beginning of the effective dissolution of Union; in fact, Union Typewriter Company is completely reorganized, the new name becoming Remington Typwriter Company. Seamans continues as president. Pittsburg goes bankrupt, and is allowed to go into liquidation with Franklin Sholes as receiver.

1914-1915: Somewhere in this period, the Monarch factory, built only in 1904 is shut down and sold. Production of the machine is transferred to Remington's plant. The machine also now carries the Remington brand name. All upstrikes out of production.

ca 1916: The remains of Pittsburg are bought by new interests, apparently controlled by Montgomery-Ward. So, the Daugherty-Pittsburg line becomes the only design to have been merged into, and then bought back out of, Union Typewriter Company when it reappears shortly as the Reliance, with no further association with Union or any part thereof whatsoever. Competition continues for the remaining Remington, Smith Premier, Yost and "Monarch" machines as the new Woodstock appears and is quickly accepted by the public.

1919: American Writing Machine begins distributing the Century 10, formerly the Remington Junior. The machine was redesigned for this new effort; some say it was actually built at the Smith Premier plant. No matter the circumstances, it is not a success.

1921: Production of the Smith Premier full-keyboard "visible," built since 1908 is abandoned. The Monarch-pattern machine is rebranded as Smith Premier, and production is moved a second time, to the 1904 Smith Premier plant. Major recession in the early 1920's kills a large number of typewriter manufacturers, world-wide but competition inside the US remains strong for Remington and its associates from Underwood (the industry leader,) L.C. Smith, Royal and Woodstock.

1924: Production of the Yost No. 20, second and last "visible" Yost is terminated. At this point, the formerly large line of disparate office sized standards has been reduced to just two: the (much modified) Remington Standard, and the Smith Premier Standard (which originally was the Monarch.) However, in this same year, Remington buys the Noiseless Typewriter Company, of Middletown, Connecticut and thus has a third office-sized standard to offer. This would be the last acquisition/merger of any typewriter manufacturer by the Remington concern; the 1927 merger that created Remington-Rand involved adding machines and office equipment. From this point, Remington's downward slide began to recover as it decided that, since it could no longer monopolize typewriter manufacturing, it might just as well offer a wholly complete, total line of all office machines and products. This set the pattern for a number of other mergers later on (for example, the later buyout of Woodstock by adding machine maker R.C. Allen, the merger of Smith-Corona with Marchant Calculator, and others.)