Edward E. Kleinschmidt

Born in 1876, Edward E. Kleinschmidt was a German-American engineer and inventor best remembered for his work on the teleprinter, sometimes called the teletype. His inventions helped make it possible to send and receive typed messages more quickly and directly, an important step in the modernization of communications.

Smithsonian collection notes describe him as both an inventor and businessman, and credit him with creating not only a high-speed teletype but also a high-speed stock ticker, an automatic fishing reel, and a railroad signaling device. The same records describe the Kleinschmidt Teletype as a breakthrough that helped replace Morse code transmission with typewriters and printers.

His company later became part of the Morkrum-Kleinschmidt and Teletype story, which played a major role in twentieth-century communications. He lived from September 9, 1876, to August 22, 1977, giving him a remarkably long life that stretched from the early electrical age into the modern electronic era.