It’s interesting to think back to the office of the 1950s where being a women who worked in an office was likely about being a secretary and being a secretary was all about typing. This was before copy machines were mainstream which meant that if more than one copy of a document was needed, they would use carbon paper to type two copies at a time. If you’ve ever used a manual typewriter, you know that typing requires a bit of strength. Perhaps that’s why the women in this June 1957 ad for Underwood typewriters appears to be in love with her new “golden touch” typewriter. According to the ad copy, the new Underwood Touch-Master ends back-breaking pound-pound typing forever.
Mid-Century Page 
My father owned an Underwood 5 and I loved everything about the way it looked. The keys were hard to push and I’m afraid I enjoyed mushing all the type bars into a locked snarl. When I took a typing class in high school (mid ’70s), we learned on Selectrics. The keys were shockingly fast with a satisfying snap sound. Thank you for this article! I ended up wondering what “extra-smart letters” were. . .
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Imagine how excited that must have been when electric typewriters became standard in offices. I found a restored old manual typewriter in a antique store several years ago and bought it, thinking I would use it, but it takes some practice and (yes) hard work to type anything longer than a sentence.
Thanks for sharing.
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