I got straight Ds in typing class. I couldn't master touch typing, and I was one of those kids who wore out the eraser before I finished a page. The white out tape had not been invented, nor had white out.
I was really happy to get a word processor with a key to back space and delete errors. I got much better typing, with my own method. When I worked at the library, one of my co-workers said I was the fastest 2 fingered typists they'd ever seen

Little round enamel keys



ETA:

That was when I was really young … when I took typing in high school, I was 95 wpm with no errors … shorthand… 120 wpm …

I supported myself with office jobs for years … skills to pay the bills, as my kid now says

Your 'ETA' was me, too. My mother pushed me into secretarial classes in HS, and I loved it. And, yes, I spent the first year on a manual typewriter, and it was a workout lol. It was a skill you could take to almost any industry, and I worked a few, eventually landing in a law firm - where the most $$ was at that time - and became a paralegal with OJT.

It's a relic, it was my dad's when he was in law school and I used it in college in the '60s - still have it. I could never type worth shit, still can't.

my first typewriter as a teenager was a portable manual, and I used the "hunt and peck" system until I eventually took a touch typing class in high school on an electric typewriter.
Typing and self taught 10 key proficiency turned out to be the best skills I ever learned as they kept me with a job for most of my working career.

I always felt like I had a work out when I was done and oh, the erasing. I think we all hated those classes.

The Selectrics were like magic ehen they came out with auto correct function.

I remember learning to use a lighter touch on the keyboard. At first, I pounded on the keys until I got instructed NOT to.

There was one Selectric in one office I worked at that had a feather light touch. They used to call me "machine gun" because of the constant noise from my typewriter. LOL

It was an old machine. It got my Aunt thru college in the 1920's-ish, and my dad thru college on the GI bill after the war. I started playing with it in childhood and it got me thru college too. The keyboard action was heavy! I had fingers like Popeye had arms by the time I graduated. I still have it, plus white out that has hardened to a rock, and carbon paper that my girls loved using in childhood. The rubber platen and rubber rollers have hardened so much that a piece of paper just slides around in it, but I wouldn't part with it for the world.

...typing contest when she was in high school. It weighed a ton.

I, on the other hand, can't type worth a damn because I never took a typing class. I was going to during my senior year of high school, but it was a choice between typing and advanced biology, and being a science geek, I wanted to take the bio course, so I did. I can hunt and peck with 6 fingers, but have to look at the keyboard. What I wouldn't have given to have a word processor while I was in grad school, but they didn't exist in 1980-82.

I was really sad when I found out that my mom had given her typewriter to the metal scavengers. I had intended to keep it and make a little vintage family heirloom display using it and a few old photographs and books, but, alas, she didn't know I wanted it.

My mom was a transcriptionist, so even though she quit working when I was born, she had her own typewriter & was a whiz. 115-120wpm at zero errors on a manual typewriter.
The one she had typed in cursive (almost).
I knew how to touchtype before I could write cursive. Probably 7 years old.
During typing class my sophomore year of HS, I was told to go shoot hoops for 50 minutes each day, because I could already type faster than the teacher.

We had to go from our Art & Music HS at the time on 135th St down to Midtown Manhattan for our typing class one semester. Ohhh, joy! 🙄

When I got to Art college they had a Selectric. 🥰
I used to type text for some kind of design class? I loved to switch the ball for Italic, or bold! 😄👍

Those old black ones with no letters on the keys and you had to really punch hard to make the letters print properly.
I always suspected the type was weighted

Later on, I inherited my Grandfather's manual Underwood. It did have letters and was much prettier than the old Royals.

I had to type up letters with 2 or 3 carbon copies, prep stuff for the mimeograph, and all sorts of strange things in my typing classes.
I hate carbon paper and I am so glad we do not have to use any of that old stuff ever again

It was one for home use and the letters weren't always in a straight line. I taught myself how to touch type andi could get over 60 words per minute. When I started using electric typewriters, my speed went up and so did my errors. I also learned to use correction tape and white-out.

I think it was a 'Rocket'? I don't recall where it is right now. So many pieces of my father are disappearing and there were not that many to begin with.

Although it was the mint-green one below the one listed.

Well done!

(Gods, after looking at that page, I want to find it again!)