In addition to all this work, Edison gave attention to many other things. One of them was the first typewriter. In the early 'seventies Mr. D. N. Craig, who was interested in the automatic, brought with him from Milwaukee a Mr. Sholes, who had a wooden model of a machine to which had been given the then new and unfamiliar name of "typewriter." Mr. Craig was interested in the machine and put the model in Edison's hands to perfect.
"This typewriter proved a difficult thing," says Edison, "to make commercial. The alignment of the letters was awful. One letter would be one-sixteenth of an inch above the others, and all the letters wanted to wander out of line. I worked on it till the machine gave fair results. Some were made and used in the office of the Automatic Company. Craig was very sanguine that some day all business letters would be written on a typewriter. He died before that took place; but it gradually made its way. The typewriter I got into commercial shape is now known as the Remington. I now had five shops, and with experimenting on this new scheme I was pretty busy--at least I did not have ennui."
Later on, after the automatic was completed, and Edison was installing the system for the Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Company he says: "About this time I invented a district messenger call-box system, and organized a company called the Domestic Telegraph Company, and started in to install the system in New York. I had great difficulty in getting subscribers, having tried several canvassers, who, one after the other, failed to get subscribers. When I was about to give it up a test operator named Brown, who was on the Automatic Telegraph wire between New York and Washington, which passed through my Newark shop, asked permission to let him try and see if he couldn't get subscribers. I had very little faith in his ability to get any, but I thought I would give him a chance, as he felt certain of his ability to succeed. He started in, and the results were surprising. Within a month he had procured two hundred subscribers, and the company was a success. I have never quite understood why six men should fail absolutely, while the seventh man should succeed. Perhaps hypnotism would account for it. This company was sold out to the Atlantic and Pacific Company."