Label Type
Object LabelLabel
Oliver No. 5 Typewriter
1915
The Oliver Typewriting Co.
Chicago, Illinois
The Printing Museum Collection*
2017.000.304
The Oliver Typewriter Company was an American typewriter manufacturer headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. The Oliver Typewriter was one of the first "visible print" typewriters, meaning text was visible to the typist as it was entered.
The general design of Oliver typewriters remained mostly unchanged throughout the company's history. The Oliver No. 5 was the last offering of the Oliver Typewriter Company that was designed by Thomas Oliver himself. It featured a new bell clap, tabulator and pencil carrier, an early backspacer, and an updated shifting mechanism. It used the "Printype" typeface, which was designed to look like a traditional book.
Oliver produced more than one million machines between 1895 and 1928 and licensed its designs to several international firms. Competitive pressure and financial troubles resulted in the company's liquidation in 1928. The company's assets were purchased by investors who formed The British Oliver Typewriter Company, which manufactured and licensed the machines until its own closure in the late 1950s. The last Oliver typewriter was produced in 1959.