Christina Bates
Canadian Museum of Civilization

Sholes's invention had a four-bank keyboard like today, but there was no standarization of the arrangement of letters and numbers. Typing was accomplished with only two fingers, while looking at the keyboard. A cylindrical roller, or patten, was manually loaded with special paper. As the typist pressed the keys, the patten moved from right to left by means of a counterweight. The tricky part for the typist was to judge how far to move the roller to get down to the next line. Another disadvantage was that the keys struck the paper from below, preventing the typist from seeing what had been written.

However, by the time Lottie sat down at her first typewriter around 1905, the machine had been greatly improved. Finally, a machine had been invented that could produce a letter quicker than handwriting. The letters came out consistently clear on the upper side of the paper, and a carriage return lever smoothly brought the paper to the next line. The keyboard arrangement was standardized like today's keyboards. Lottie would have learned ten-finger typing by the "touch" method, that is, typing without looking at the keyboard.

Nevertheless, the manual typewriter was a complicated machine with 30 parts that Lottie had to memorize and maintain. She also had to learn to type quickly with few mistakes. Too many corrections would make a mess of a letter. Errors could only be corrected manually, by means of strikeovers (one key over another), correctional fluid or tape or eraser.

From the beginning, typing speed had been a major sales feature of the new machines. To promote sales, typewriter manufacturers sponsored scores of typewriting competitions at major trade shows and exhibitions in Canada, the United States and Europe. By 1900, typewriting competitions had become a new kind of sports event.

Hundreds of people were attracted to these matches and competition was fierce. No typewriter company took these contests as seriously as the Underwood Company of New York. Underwood's racing team was unsurpassed, coached by a man named Charles E. Smith. Smith was a talent scout who went to secretarial schools to search out potential champions. He also invented many speed typing techniques and paid his team of typists excellent salaries.

Typing called for great concentration, manual dexterity and meticulousness, all of which Lottie Betts had in plenty, along with a good dose of competitive spirit. Her special talent was recognized early on, and she was encouraged to take part in typewriting competitions. But, it was Smith who discovered Lottie and enticed her to New York in 1909 to train with his team. He taught her many of his speed-typing techniques, and it paid off.

One year after joining the Underwood team, Lottie won a Canadian competition for accuracy in typing, misstriking only 16 keys in 30 minutes. Speed, accuracy and endurance were essential requirements for the competitions. Lottie excelled in them all.

At top form, Lottie achieved 103 words per minute, a speed very few people can do, even on today's electronically-sensitive keyboards with automatic carriage return. Imagine the strain of typing non-stop for up to an hour with a hundred other expert typists sitting nearby. Not only do you have to go like lightning, but you cannot make too many mistakes. Commentators at the time remarked that, after a long workout at top speed, the floor around the typists' chairs was wet from the perspiration that had dripped down their arms and off their elbows.