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
Louis C. Latham Louis C. Latham Louis Charles Latham (September 11, 1840, Plymouth, North Carolina – October 16, 1895 Baltimore, Maryland) was a member of the United States House of Representatives representing North Carolina. Latham graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1859 and later attended the Harvard Law School. He entered the Confederate Army in 1861 where he was commissioned captain and afterward major of the First Regiment of North Carolina State troops, and served throughout the American Civil War. Following the war he resumed the study of law, was admitted to the bar in 1868 and commenced