Remington Portable typewriter

item details

NameRemington Portable typewriter

ProductionE. Remington and Sons; manufacturer(s); 1930s; United States

Classificationtypewriters

Materialsmetal, rubber, ribbon, ceramic

DimensionsOverall: 300mm (width), 95mm (height), 280mm (depth)

Registration NumberGH025331

Credit lineGift of Marion F. Mackenzie (née Rodie), 2017

Overview

'To save time is to lengthen life' is the motto on this portable Remington typewriter. Remington was the first company to manufacture a commercial typewriter (1874). From the mid-1880s, typewriters became common in offices, with portable typewriters appearing in 1890. They became an indispensable tool for nearly all writing other than personal handwritten correspondence.

This typewriter was the working tool of New Zealand designer and fashion journalist Mollie Rodie Mackenzie (1919-2020, New Zealand/Australia) during her long and successful career. It was given to her by her father Daniel Rodie when she was 17/18 years old at the beginning of her career. She once said of her typewriter: 'me and my best friend, a Remington portable typewriter. It never failed me'.*

Rodie showed an aptitude for writing and drawing from a young age. She trained in art at Wellington Technical College, and at 17 travelled to London to study fashion drawing and completed an apprenticeship in fashion design and cutting. When she returned, she worked briefly in Wellington as a trainee designer, and then wrote popular fashion columns and features for a dozen newspapers and magazines, including the Evening Post, the New Zealand Herald, and the New Zealand Weekly News. While working full-time during the Second World War, she volunteered to design the costumes for pageants and fundraising carnivals between 1939-41, including the huge Victory Queen Carnival in 1941. This was on top of her regular job, which meant getting up at 5am each day.

In 1942 Mollie married Otago sheep-farmer Hal Dillon Scobie Mackenzie. She left behind her Wellington city life for the farm, but was able to continue a busy freelance career in writing and design for thirty years. For example, during the war she ran a Clothes Consultancy Service providing advice on how to make the most of wardrobes during a period of rationing. Thousands of women wrote to her and she replied to them all with advice and design sketches.

*Queree, J. and A.P. Wood (2003). Beyond the black singlet: the Mollie Rodie Mackenzie Collection of 20th century New Zealand clothing. Records of Canterbury Museum, vol. 17, page 49.