DULUTH – Josh Nickila didn’t think much about typewriters.
Machines were on the verge of extinction when she was born in 1985, and Nickila, from Duluth, said her earliest memories of typing were on a computer’s word processor.
But his indifference to the typewriter changed in January when he watched “California Typewriter,” a 2016 documentary about a Berkeley, Calif. typewriter store, and other enthusiasts determined to use the machine in the 21st century.
“I watched this and I was just hooked,” Nickila said. “I got my first official typewriter about two weeks after watching this movie.”
It was a 1956 Smith Corona Sterling, which he described as “a Chevy of typewriters.” But he wanted more.
So he posted flyers in cafes and churches around Duluth asking people to unload their typewriters. He also scoured Facebook Marketplace and other websites.
“Everyone has a grandparent or relative who has one in their garage or at an estate sale or estate sale that has one and people pass them by just because people don’t think of a typewriter “Nickila said. “But for someone like me, trying to slowly build a resurgence, they’re everywhere.”
He thinks he has about 35 typewriters, up from 45 after selling a few, in the office of his Norton Park neighborhood house. The Macintosh computer on the desk was set aside so he could restore a standard 1923 Underwood portable typewriter; a small part of Switzerland had just arrived.
The flyers also included a plug for the Twin Ports Typewriter Collective, a group founded by Nickila where people can sell, buy and talk about typewriters. This community building includes connecting local writers and poets with typewriters.
Jess Morgan, who leads the Duluth Poetry Chapter for the League of Minnesota Poets, met Nickila, a musician, while arranging entertainment for the Duluth-Superior Pride Festival. Nickila also got Morgan hooked on the “California Typewriter” documentary. They’ve watched it three times so far.
Nickila helped Morgan connect with a Corona Silent Smith, the kind actor and typewriter collector that Tom Hanks loves in the documentary. Nickila repairs Morgan’s other Smith Corona.
Morgan said poets use typewriters when on the streets because they can quickly type a poem on paper and hand it to the customer. Away from the streets, Morgan added, writing on typewriters has advantages over a computer: there are fewer distractions, no batteries to keep charged, and no delicate electronics to protect.
“It’s nice to have the typing speed without the distraction of computers,” Morgan said.
And Morgan wants to help local poets get their hands on typewriters. They’re trying busking as an engagement strategy with a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board “to explore non-traditional audience connection and engagement strategies for Duluth’s multidisciplinary poets and artists, particularly among LGBTQ2+ populations, low-income and neurodiverse”.
“I’ve also been working on the slow accumulation (of typewriters) so that I can either pass them on to poets to latch on to, or do some typing and maybe learn more about the machines” , Morgan said.
Typewriters are a gathering of other typewriter and/or poetry enthusiasts.
The events would fit into Morgan’s Arrowhead Regional Arts Council grant-funded project to “support the writing and publication of a book of poetry that focuses on the people, places and topography of the area. of Duluth, MN”.
Morgan hopes to collaborate with Nickila on some of the seizures.
“He helped spread a little more enthusiasm for it,” Morgan said. “And just to help people understand what’s really cool about machines.”
The bonds Nickila formed through this hobby haven went beyond the Duluth area. He corresponded with some of the “California Typewriter” subjects, including Tom Hanks.
In October, Hanks, with his typewriter, replied to a letter that Nickila had typed to him. Hanks addressed it to Nickila and her two stepdaughters, Tala and Esme.
“Thank you for the lovely letter and please keep typing, everyone…” Hanks wrote.
Nickila intends to do so. And he also wants other people to type.
He’s going to take an old typewriter, tinker with it, clean it, and restore it to working order. Chances are he’ll sell it, but for him it’s not about profit. He said he did it because he wanted to “work typists for people who want to be interested or passionate about typewriters.”
“If people don’t keep them, they’ll disappear,” Nickila said. “I don’t want the idea of the typewriter, one of the most important instruments of the 19th century, to disappear.”