1920's Working Underwood No. 5 Black Typewriter L 12"x W12"xH9"

Long Island, July 1922. The sound of ticking fingers pressing on typewriter keys spreads throughout the house: it is a hot summer day and Francis Scott Fitzgerald, sitting at his desk, is intent on bringing to life one of the most beloved stories of the 20th century. Before him, gleaming and majestic, is his working ally, the one who enabled him to put on paper one of the greatest masterpieces of American literature. The writer, in fact, to create The Great Gatsby and its characters, chose to do so through an Underwood typewriter. The American firm produced machines that gave life to hundreds of other stories and characters by distinguished writers such as Ernest Hemingway or Dorothy Parker: among its models, one of the most successful was the Underwood No. 5, a unique piece of design, innovation and modernity. Underwood, a company founded in 1874 by entrepreneur John Thomas Underwood, was initially involved in supplying carbon paper and printing ribbons for typewriters manufactured by other companies, notably E. Remington and sons: when the latter decided to start in-house production of the accessories needed for printing, Underwood, in order to survive the change, expanded its market by starting to produce its own typewriters in turn. Thus was born in 1895 the Underwood Typewriter Company. The first Underwoods, the No. 1 and No. 2, both “standard” typewriters of the time, were made in collaboration with German-American inventor Franz Xaver Wagner, and between 1896 and 1900 some 12,000 were produced.