The typewriter was invented incrementally by many inventors over several centuries, but the first commercially successful typewriter was patented in 1868 by Americans Christopher Latham Sholes, Frank Haven Hall, Carlos Glidden, and Samuel W. Soule. It entered production by E. Remington and Sons in 1873, marking the beginning of widespread use of typewriters, especially in offices in the US from the mid-1880s onward.

Earlier precursors include devices from the 16th and 17th centuries, and various patents during the 19th century by inventors such as William Austin Burt in 1829, who patented a machine called the "Typographer" often cited as an early typewriter. However, the typewriter as recognized today, with the QWERTY keyboard and commercial success, originated with Sholes and his colleagues in the late 1860s.