Early Typewriters and the Typing Problem
The first commercially successful typewriter, the Sholes and Glidden Type Writer, was introduced in 1874. Early operators typed with two to four fingers, looking at the keys — essentially the same hunt-and-peck method that many computer users still use today.
As typewriters spread through offices in the 1870s and 1880s, faster operators were in high demand. Several people began experimenting with more systematic approaches to typing.
Frank Edward McGurrin — 1888
Frank Edward McGurrin, a court stenographer from Salt Lake City, is credited with the first public demonstration of touch typing. In 1888, he competed against Louis Taub — a champion typist who used a look-at-the-keys method — in a speed competition in Cincinnati.
McGurrin won decisively. He typed without looking at the keyboard, used all ten fingers, and demonstrated that a systematic home-row method outperformed ad hoc visual typing. The public competition spread awareness of his technique rapidly.
How the Method Spread
After McGurrin's demonstration, typing schools began teaching the ten-finger, home-row method. Typewriter manufacturers promoted it because it benefited their customers. By the early twentieth century, touch typing had become the professional standard for office work.
Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing (1987) and similar software later brought touch typing instruction to home computers, beginning the era of self-taught touch typing at scale.
The QWERTY Layout Question
Touch typing's history is inseparable from the QWERTY layout's history. Despite occasional claims that QWERTY was designed to slow typists down (to prevent typewriter key jams), the actual evidence for this is weak. QWERTY was designed with common letter pairs in mind, and it has persisted through inertia and the enormous switching cost of re-training millions of typists.
Touch Typing Today
The principles McGurrin demonstrated in 1888 are unchanged: all ten fingers, home row anchoring, typing by feel. The keyboards have changed dramatically — mechanical switches, laptop chiclet keys, ergonomic split keyboards — but the motor skill is the same.