Post cards tell their own stories of early typewriter history. Post cards particularly are evidence of the way society looked at these modern contraptions and their consequences for office life.
(See History - social relevance)

The office romance was a recurring subject in postcards (pic 5). But there were also interesting contrasts, like the cards of young ladies with a dreamy look on their face, sitting in front of a typewriter (pics 2). "I'm always thinking of you," is the caption.

At first glance one could think that the girl is writing a letter to her lover. But of course, she isn't. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, nobody would write a love letter on a typewriter. That was too impersonal. The machine just tells us that the girl is dreaming away from her work, and the card is an obvious statement about the relatively new phenomenon of women in the office.

Finally, pic 6 starts a series of early Valentine's Day cards. The earliest is from the 1890s, the latest probably from 1908. It is interesting to not that although the typewriter was long regarded as an 'impersonal' instrument, unfit for private correspondence, the machine soon appeared in the Valentine card as an instrument to write love letters. But maybe here the machine guaranteed the required anonimity. (If you want to see a particular image a bit longer, just click it to stop the slide show.)
Courtesy: P&C Weil collection.