Giuseppe Ravizza Giuseppe Ravizza Giuseppe Ravizza, a prolific typewriter inventor, was born in Novara, Italy in 1811 (died 1885), and spent nearly 40 years of his life obsessively grappling with the complexities of inventing a usable writing machine. He called his invention "" because of its piano-type keys and keyboard. The story of the 16 models he produced between 1847 and the early 1880s is described in "The Writing Machine" and illustrated from Ravizza’s 1855 patent, which bears similarities to the later upstroke design of the Sholes and Glidden typewriter. In 1868, the American Christopher Latham Sholes (1819-1890) patented, on behalf of
Thomas J. Latham American Civil War. After the war, he was opposed to disenfranchisement. Latham resumed his legal practice in Memphis, Tennessee from 1866 to 1868. In January 1868, he was appointed by Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase as "register of the United States district court in bankruptcy" for Memphis. In 1879, he was appointed by Judge John Baxter as debt receiver of the City of Memphis. Latham acquired the bankrupt Memphis Water Company for US$155,000 in 1880. He served as its president until 1903. Additionally, he served as the president of the Chickasaw Land Company and the New South Coal and Mining