He Fixed 300,000+ Machines - America's Oldest Typewriter Repairman Dies At 96

An anonymous reader writes "The New York Times reports, 'For eight decades, Manson Whitlock kept the 20th century's ambient music going: the ffft of the roller, the ding of the bell, the decisive zhoop ... bang of the carriage return, the companionable clack of the keys. From the early 1930s until shortly before his death last month at 96, Mr. Whitlock, at his shop in New Haven, cared for the instruments, acoustic and electric, on which that music was played. Mr. Whitlock was often described as America's oldest typewriter repairman. He was inarguably one of the country's longest-serving. Over time he fixed more than 300,000 machines, tending manuals lovingly, electrics grudgingly and computers never. "I don't even know what a computer is," Mr. Whitlock told The Yale Daily News, the student paper, in 2010. "I've heard about them a lot, but I don't own one, and I don't want one to own me."'"

Comments

Re:Last repairman?

[SirGarlon]

I think the dwindling number of repairmen is due to increase factory automation. Today, the amount of human labor that goes into making a device is very low (still decreasing) and unskilled. Repair is labor-intensive and requires skill. Therefore, for an increasing range of products, it's cheaper to make a new one than to repair it. The exceptions are when the items are very costly, like cars and houses, and/or difficult to replace, like HVAC systems.