mcloughlin bro’s typewriter

Normally known in typewriter literature as the McLoughlin, it reads McLoughlin Bro’s Typewriter on the machine itself. The scarce leaflets and manuals even give other names or are even more elaborate: ‘Young Peoples Type-Writer’, and ‘The McLoughlin Rapid Type-Writer’ or ‘New Rapid Type Writer’. In advertisements it is mostly the ‘McLoughlin Bros’ 10 dollar type-writer’, which was also found in an early brochure.
Sometimes the name McLaughlin can be found, which is not a joke.

A description of its working in a surviving instruction leaflet is sufficient for us to understand it. Here, the mechanism which comprises the selecting part and the inking part is called ‘the Writer’. Its movement along two sliding rods is regulated by a ratched and catch at the front. By releasing the catch, by lifting it, the index part can be moved freely over the two central cross rods.
The paper is inserted in a regular way. Selecting a character is done by means of the crank at the top. The letter-disk beneath moves parallel with the selection and situates the character to be printed above the printing point. “When the crank is placed in any notch on the dial, the corresponding letter is printed, by a downward pressure, upon the paper below.” There is an arrow on the dial for spacing, but pressing down the ‘writer’ so far that is still doesn’t print, will move the carriage by one space too.

Although the roller is 9 inch wide, only paper up to 6 inches wide can be printed, due to the width of the ‘writer’. Six inches wide paper is not a standard width, not then, not now. There is a bell that can be adjusted to the width of the paper.
The letter order on the index disk is alphabetical and only capitals could be printed.
“Several styles of type are offered”, we learn from an article from 1886, of which there is at least an italic style, as the sample shows. The regular one, the roman style, had some resemblance with the Sholes & Glidden font.

toy
The Phonographic World called the McLoughlin Bros. toy dealers. But they were publishers of children books, and yes, also of ‘criss cross spelling slips’ and ‘yankee letter blocks’.  Regarding the latter, the McLoughlin Bros’ Type Writer was a great leap forward.
‘No toy equals it’, the company wrote on a Christmas card. It would make children experts in spelling and composition.
Apparently these children were boys, not girls. Read the manual: “This writer is simple durable and cheap. As a gift to boys it takes the place of the toy printing press.”

“It is [..] so simple that it can be operated without assistance by a child, with the same facility as an older person.”, an instruction leaflet wrote. Howard (2011) believed that the machine was the first being marketed as a children’s typewriter, but we think that the Universal Type Writer can claim that title.
Howard made an interesting remark about that ‘facility’: “.. the spring used for the printing assembly is overly strong, and requires a good push to depress. To make matters worse, the amount of push required increases significantly as the distance to the fulcrum lessens, for instance when the lever is moved to the six o’clock position. In the hands of an adult, the McLoughlin would have been laborious and in the hands of a child, hard to imagine.”

The McLoughlin was offered for $ 10. For that price, however, you could buy four lines fine all wool cheviot and cassimere men’s suits, or four to six pairs of shoes, or twenty ink stands. It was equal to a weekly wage for typewriter operators.

models
Perhaps because of its rarity, the McLoughlin was rarely described in typewriter literature. Only two articles from before 1900 appeared, the last of which in the 1892 Phonographic World repeated the first in 1886’s Browne’s Phonographic Monthly and which in turn was echoed again by Mares (1909).
There are three further contributions: Legrand (1986), Howard, and Casillo (2017). Legrand noticed the differences between some surviving machines, which were further elaborated in an article by Howard.

Howard described two models, but in fact more can be distinguished. In the short time of its existence there were several modifications. Model determination is of course questionable, when no model differentiation is given upon the machine itself nor in instruction leaflets. One surviving leaflet gives a possibility for such determination by distinguishing two parts that made up the McLoughlin: “one, the frame formed by the two side brackets and the four cross parts; the other, the Writer, consisting of the raised, rond parts, their supports, and the operating crank at the top.”
We come to five different models [A-E] and 6 submodels. The first two have a casted frame that differs from the other three.

Perhaps the earliest production phase was not productive enough, because none of the machines are known to have survived. Model [A] might not even have been distributed, although it was advertised with in a brochure for several months. The same goes for model [B]. However, it is hard to believe that for at least more than one year of advertising with these models, none of them were actually made and sold.

advertising and distribution
The McLoughlin Brothers used their network of booksellers, toy dealers and stationery shops to promote their typewriter. It was probably there where the leaflets could be found. Also, a promotional Christmas card is known that must be purchased in the same area. Only one dealer is known by name, C.L.Downes, almost a neighbour of the McLoughlin Brothers.
Furthermore, the company advertised in some newspapers in Kansas, Missouri, Texas, and Pennsylvania from the end of 1885 until the beginnings of 1887.
Mostly the advantages of the machine were praised in advertisements and other promotional stuff. But in an instruction booklet the company boasted additionally: “The medal received at the American Institute Fair fully substantiates what is here printed.” That medal was a ‘medal of excellence’. It was an honour which the Hall typewriter also was given, and with which that company still advertised at the time that the McLoughlin entered the market. The Hall, on the other hand, received a ‘medal of superiority’.

mcloughlin [A]
mcloughlin [B] | inking rollers attached to index disk
mcloughlin [C] | new side frames
mcloughlin [D]
mcloughlin [E]