Typewriter of the poet and author e. e. cummings:
Typewriter of e. e. cummings, displayed at the New York Public Library, 2012. Photo by Chris Wolack, WildmooBooks
Through March of 2012, 250 objects from the collections of the New York Public Library were displayed to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the opening of the library’s Stephen A. Schwarzman Building. A few of the objects exhibited were typewriters, including this one.
Did you notice? The keyboard shows only capital letters! Did that anger cummings, or make him crazy? Not that we can see.
More:
Self-Portrait, Oil Painting. Cummings in the 1950s. Courtesy of Nancy T. Andrews, via Modern American Poetry
- Brochure of the exhibit, in .pdf
- Profile of e. e. cummings by Nicholas Everett at Modern American Poetry
- cummings profile at poets.org
- cummings bio at the Poetry Foundation
- Typewriter keyboard-shaped waffle iron (lostateminor.com)
- Love a Library Day in New York (theepochtimes.com)
- USB Typewriters for your computer and iPad (lostateminor.com)
Tip of the old scrub brush to Chris Wolack at WildmooBooks.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
[…] e. e. cummings […]
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So, maybe cummings had weak pinkies. That would make sense. I think it was more likely out of his intentions to change the conventions, for poetic reasons. Isn’t he the guy who wrote an entire book without using the letter “e,” at one point?
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… But the labor involved in pressing the shift key would certainly represent an easy answer to why no caps (my iPad, on the other hand, insisted on adding caps to this post unless I exerted extra effort to uncap. This would have driven him crazier.).
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