100 Years Ago in Forest Home Cemetery...

On June 7, 1924, a crowd gathered at Milwaukee's Forest Home Cemetery for the unveiling of a new memorial at the gravesite of Christopher Latham Sholes, inventor of the typewriter and the QWERTY keyboard, An early form of crowdsourcing gathered donations to create the memorial. 

Forest Home Cemetery historian Brian Fette notes that Mayor Daniel Hoan presided over the dedication ceremony, which was also attended by Christopher's daughter, Lillian Sholes. 

This history is something that we're proud to celebrate at QWERTYFEST MKE, and part of our activities line-up for Sunday, June 23 (which is National Typewriter Day!) is a "QWERTY Journey" tour at Forest Home Cemetery, which we're offering at 11am and again at 2pm. The tour, led by Fette, not only visits the Sholes Memorial, but talks about other key figures in the invention of the typewriter and the publishing industry so you can learn about the enduring legacy of Milwaukee inventors and purveyors of the written word.

This unique tour was created specifically for QWERTYFEST MKE. Tickets for the tour are $15 and can be purchased here: QWERTYFEST MKE 2024 | Buy Tickets | Ticketbud

You can see a full QF schedule here: QWERTYFEST 2024 SCHEDULE - QWERTYFEST

SEE ALSO: Our roving reporter Ed Makowski talked to Brian Fette in advance of QWERTYFEST last year: "When Milwaukee was the Silicon Valley for Typewriters and more."

Molly Snyder wrote about women's typewriter history in "Women's complicated relationship with the typewriter is not black-and-white." 

Both articles published in QWERTY Quarterly #1 and OnMilwaukee.com.