John Jonathan Pratt (April 14, 1831 – 24/25 June 1905) was an American journalist and inventor, known for creating the Pterotype, one of the earliest

typewriter A typewriter is a Machine, mechanical or electromechanical machine for typing characters. Typically, a typewriter has an array of Button (control), keys, and each one causes a different single character to be produced on paper by striking an i ...

Biography

Pratt was born in Unionville, South Carolina on April 14, 1831. His father was a judge. Pratt was educated in South Carolina and graduated from Cokesbury College in 1849. For some years, he worked as a journalist and lawyer. He married, at the age of twenty-one, Julia R. Porter, a daughter of Judge Benjamin F. Porter, of Alabama. Pterotype

In 1864, Pratt and his wife moved to England. He devoted his time to inventing a typewriting machine, which he called the Ptérotype. It proved to be the first working typewriter that ever secured a sale. In 1867 his machine was exhibited before the

Society of Arts The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, commonly known as the Royal Society of Arts (RSA), is a learned society that champions innovation and progress across a multitude of sectors by fostering creativity, s ...

, the Society of Engineers, and the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

. The invention received provisional protection from the British government in February 1864, and was awarded letters patent No. 3,163 on December 1, 1866. Pratt's machine was covered in several journals, and one such description attracted the attention of

Christopher Latham Sholes Christopher Latham Sholes (February 14, 1819February 17, 1890) was an American inventor who invented the QWERTY keyboard, and, along with Samuel W. Soule, Carlos Glidden and John Pratt, has been contended to be one of the inventors of the fir ...

and

Carlos Glidden Carlos Glidden (November 8, 1834 – March 11, 1877), along with Christopher Sholes, Frank Haven Hall, and Samuel W. Soule, invented the first practical typewriter at a machine shop in Milwaukee, Wisconsin Wisconsin ( ) is a U.S. s ...

, who went on to develop the Remington No. 1, which became the first commercially successful typewriter. Pratt returned to the United States in 1868, and secured letters patent No. 81,000 in August of that year. He continued to develop his typewriter; his second US patent was sold to the

Hammond Typewriter Company The Hammond Typewriter was invented by James Bartlett Hammond and first manufactured in 1885. The typeface used by the typewriter was also available as foundry type from the Inland Type Foundry The Inland Type Foundry was an American type f ...

. In 1886, he moved to

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

, New York, where he lived until around 1903. Pratt died in 1905 in

Chattanooga, Tennessee Chattanooga ( ) is a city in Hamilton County, Tennessee, United States, and its county seat. It is located along the Tennessee River and borders Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the south. With a population of 181,099 in 2020, it is Tennessee ...

, aged 74.

References

Content attribution

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Pratt, John (inventor) 19th-century American inventors 19th-century American journalists People from Union, South Carolina 1831 births 1905 deaths