"For 35 years Underwood has been the acknowledged leader in word typing ... in speeding the world's written records. Underwood has pioneered the major advancements that have made business communication fast, accurate and efficient, where four decades ago was slow, laborious an wasteful. This leadership Underwood has maintained without interruption ... fastening the training of skilled operators ... and speeding up typewriting methods by winning 25 consecutive world's typewriting championship contests."
(from Chicago 1.933 Fair booklet)

With more typewriters--and skilled typists--available, the public began to take speed typing seriously. Typing was treated as a sport like boxing or baseball and was popular across the United States. Contests were staged regularly and contestants prepared seriously, often sponsored by typewriter manufacturers.

However, when it came to speed, not all companies were created equally. Not that the machines themselves were significantly different. Each had its particular characteristics, but these didn't make or break a contest.

Charles E. Smith did, however. The Underwood company could thank him for their unbroken string of speed-typing victories. Smith trained the Underwood stable of competition typists hard. They trained eight hours a day, five days a week.

To Smith and those he trained, typing was a way of life. With success came national and often international acclaim. With failure, countless hours back at the keyboard.

The rules were strict. All the letters had to be perfectly centered in their spaces, there could be no more than 76 and no fewer than 61 letters to a line, and no character could be darker than the others.

On what were still clunky, manual Underwoods, these typists were capable of producing more than 140 words per minute. Eventually, though, Underwood's unbroken winning streak killed the very phenomenon it helped to create.

The public grew tired of the monotony of typing contests that Underwood always won, and the national furor died down.