A Look Back at 20th Century Typing Classes Through Fascinating Historical Photos

Before computers, before email, before smartphones — there was the typewriter. And wherever the typewriter went, typing classes followed. From the earliest decades of the 20th century, schools, businesses, railways, hospitals, and even beaches became classrooms where students learned to command the keyboard. The photographs collected here offer a rare window into that world.

By the early 1900s, typewriters had moved from novelty to necessity in the modern office. Businesses needed workers who could produce clean, fast, legible documents — and that meant trained typists. Typing was initially treated as vocational training, aimed largely at women entering clerical and secretarial roles. Schools moved quickly to meet the demand.

Washington D.C.’s Business High School was among the first institutions to formalize typing education at the turn of the century. Students there sat in orderly rows, each at a machine, drilling the same keystrokes over and over to build speed and accuracy. The curriculum was serious — this was job training, not an elective.

Companies like Western Union ran their own internal typing schools for messengers and staff. The idea was straightforward: employees who could type were more valuable. The QWERTY keyboard layout — named for the first six letters across the top row — was the universal standard, and every class was built around mastering it.

Typing education was not limited to big cities or dedicated schools. In rural Wisconsin, one-room schoolhouses offered a surprising range of skills — including both sewing and typing — to their students in the early 1900s. The breadth of these early curriculums reflects just how quickly typing was recognized as a core life skill.

Mechanical typewriters demanded real physical effort. Each keystroke required enough finger pressure to drive a metal typebar through an ink ribbon and onto the paper. Starting a new line meant physically pushing a carriage return lever across the machine. Students could hear every letter they typed — the sharp clack of keys and the bell at the end of each line were constant companions in every typing room.

London was home to a thriving network of commercial institutes offering evening typing classes. Working-class men and women attended after long shifts, hoping to qualify for better-paying clerical jobs. The Blackheath Road Evening Institute, for example, ran dedicated women’s classes as early as 1914.

Large employers — including the railways — ran their own typing programs for staff. The London and North West Railway organized typewriting classes to upskill employees directly, recognizing that administrative efficiency depended on literate, fast typists at every level of the organization.

Typing education extended to populations that mainstream vocational programs often overlooked. In 1917, blind teachers instructed blind students in both Braille and typewriting — skills that together opened up a range of professional possibilities otherwise closed to them.

World War I created new and urgent demand for typists. Military camps across the United States set up business courses for soldiers — including convalescent patients recovering from wounds. At Camp Pike in Arkansas, patients receiving treatment also received typing instruction as part of their rehabilitation and preparation for civilian or military administrative work.

By the 1920s, typing instruction had spread across London’s borough institutes and into the provinces. The Bow and Bromley Commercial Institute ran well-attended classes through the mid-decade, and similar programs appeared in cities across the UK. Typing was no longer a novelty — it was a measurable, marketable qualification.

Not all typing students were women or office workers. Boys from London newspaper offices attended typewriting classes around 1930, reflecting the growing demand for fast, accurate text production in the press industry. On the other side of the spectrum, world champion typist Albert Tangira took his teaching outdoors — demonstrating technique on a beach to make the point that skilled typing could happen anywhere.

Touch typing — typing without looking at the keys — became the gold standard by the 1930s. Schools like Hutchinson Central High School in Buffalo, New York used structured drills to build muscle memory. Students trained their fingers to find every key by feel alone, which dramatically increased both speed and accuracy. Words-per-minute scores became the universal measure of a typist’s skill.

Instructors found creative ways to push students’ typing rhythm. At Boston University, a typing contest tested efficiency by having students type to music. At the Keeley Street Evening Institute, newspaper messenger boys typed along to records — the beat of the music trained their fingers to maintain a consistent pace.

The town of Slough, England, had at least two distinct typing programs running simultaneously by the mid-1930s. Both general students and pupils at the Licensed Victuallers School were learning to type — a sign of how deeply the skill had penetrated all levels of British education by that point.

Germany in the late 1930s incorporated typing into both civilian business schools and military vocational programs. A typing class at a German Army Profession School in Berlin operated as the country moved toward war — producing clerks and administrators for a rapidly expanding military bureaucracy.

Shorthand and typing were often taught together, particularly in the United Kingdom, where the combination was considered the essential secretarial package. Students who could take dictation in shorthand and then transcribe it quickly on a typewriter were among the most sought-after workers in any office.

As World War II got underway, typing training took on added urgency. From Pennsylvania high schools to Army posts in occupied Germany, classes ran at full capacity. Olyphant, Pennsylvania saw active typing programs throughout the early 1940s, with teachers closely supervising students’ technique and pace.

After the war, the U.S. Army continued running typing classes in occupied Germany. Corporal Jerret D. May instructed a typing class in Kitzingen in 1949 — part of a broader effort to equip soldiers with administrative skills they could use both in service and in civilian life after discharge.

Typing classes also appeared inside San Quentin State Prison in California by 1949. Inmates learned typewriting as part of a vocational rehabilitation program, giving them a marketable skill for life after release. The program treated typing as a practical tool for reintegration — not a privilege, but a preparation.

Catholic schools became significant providers of typing education in the postwar decades. In 1952, Sister Imelda oversaw a typing class with the same discipline applied to any other academic subject. A few years later, across the Atlantic, the Crandon Institute in Montevideo, Uruguay was running secretarial skills classes with a full complement of typewriters.

The 1960s brought a new wave of typing technology — electric typewriters. Machines like the IBM Selectric replaced the heavy keystroke effort of mechanical models with a lighter touch and added features. Classes adapted, teaching students how to use automatic carriage returns and other functions that made output faster and more consistent. Typing was evolving from a physical feat into a refined office skill.

By the mid-1960s, typing instruction had spread to high schools across the United States and beyond. Eastern High School in Baltimore ran a full typing class in 1965. That same year, New York City students were drilling specifically to increase their words-per-minute scores, while UK classrooms were experimenting with the Videomatic Tutor — an early audio-visual aid for teaching touch typing.

Government-funded programs in the United States used typing as a vehicle for broader workforce development. Project SEESAW in Louisiana, active in 1967, combined typing and secretarial skills training to move disadvantaged workers into stable employment. In Chicago, a 1972 program at a resident center paired typing instruction directly alongside nursing skills — equipping students for two distinct career tracks at once.

Typing was a global skill by the 1970s. In Qatar, men attended bilingual typing classes, learning to operate keyboards across two languages. In Paris, a series of intensive typing courses in 1975 documented students working on French AZERTY keyboards — the standard layout used across France, differing from the QWERTY layout used in English-speaking countries.

Special education programs also embraced typing. In Littleton in 1977, a summer special education typing class gave students with learning differences access to the same vocational skill being taught in mainstream schools. That same philosophy drove a 1980 typing workshop in San Francisco, led by Cortez Peters, a renowned typing instructor known for high-speed technique demonstrations.

By the 1980s, personal computers were entering classrooms and the keyboard was changing with them. Computer keyboards required far less force than mechanical typewriters and had a slightly different key layout. University computer labs began to replace typing rooms. Students were now learning not just to type, but to navigate operating systems, save files, and interact with software. The typewriter was on its way out.

Even in places where access to resources was severely limited, typing remained a valued skill. At an all-Black school in Joza Township, Grahamstown, South Africa — during the apartheid era — students sat at typewriters in a classroom that reflected the broader inequalities of the system around them. The fact that typing instruction existed there at all speaks to how widely the skill had been recognized as essential across vastly different circumstances.