It was Henry Mill who came up with the idea to create a typewriter. He patented it in the early 18th century, however, neither the device itself, nor other information about it can be found.

The inventors came back to the idea of creating such device one century later, step by step developing the typewriter. In Russia such device was created by the inventor Mikhail Alisov, but the project wasn’t successful.
In 1873, thanks to the hard work of the printer Latham Sholes, the useful and solid typewriter finally appeared. That’s when the American company Remington Arms, which started producing that model, got into the game. At first the new invention was regarded with suspicion, but the companies, banks, and business concerns soon enough understood the profit of using typewriter in their job.

Story of the famous American Underwood Typewriter Company, which produced the typewriters, started with the inventor Franz Wagner. In the late 19th century he created the more useful variation of such mechanism. The lettering parts were placed horizontally, and the font was visible during typing, which made it much easier to use the device. Franz Wagner sold his invention to the American businessman John Underwood, which made his company much richer.

Typewriters were imported to Russia from the United States and Europe. The devices made by Remington and Underwood companies were the most popular ones. Its own production appeared in Russia only after 1929, when the first Soviet typewriter Yanalif was produced.

This model was made in 1913 and belonged to the prince Serge Mikhailovich Volkonsky, who worked a lot and preferred to type his texts other than write them by hand. Many of his books, articles, materials for the lectures appeared with the help of this Underwood. The prince used this typewriter to maintain his voluminous correspondence. His communication with the baron Nikolay Nikolaevich Vrangel is especially noteworthy. They were united not only by their close friendship, but their common interests in literature, history, and art. The interesting thing about their letters is the French words written with Russian letters, as the prince didn’t have Latin letters on his keyboard. During the World War I hospital for the wounded soldiers was placed at Serge Mikhailovich’s place. And Underwood typewriter came in useful, it was used by the prince to type the soldiers’ letters home.