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James Eugene Munson (born in Paris, New York, 12 May 1835; died 1906) was a United States court stenographer and inventor, noted mostly for his consolidation of his own work, and that of others, into the Munson Shorthand system.
He studied for a time at Amherst College, but did not graduate. He became a student of shorthand early in his life, and he soon became an expert. Coming to New York City early in 1857, his first assignment was to make a verbatim report of the Harvey Burdell murder trial. Soon afterward, in connection with other court reporters, he set to work to simplify the existing systems of shorthand, and the fruits of their labor, as finally shaped and put into practice by Munson, were presented in his Complete Phonographer (New York, 1866), to the preparation of which he had devoted three years of labor, and tested it by seven years of practice.
The Complete Phonographer was followed in 1874 by a Dictionary of Practical Phonography, and in 1877 a revised edition of the Complete Phonographer appeared. In 1879 Munson published The Phrase Book of Practical Phonography. The “phrases” were taken almost entirely from illustrations gathered from Munson's notes made in his court practice, he having been court stenographer in New York City for more than twenty years. He also reported the Henry Ward Beecher trial for the New York Sun, without assistance, during the six months of its continuance. The report on the trial ran seven and a half columns of agate type per day.
Munson later went to work perfecting a typesetting machine that he had invented, which, being operated by means of a prepared ribbon of paper, automatically set a column of corrected, justified, and leaded type. He also invented the machines by which the ribbon is prepared, and a telegraph, also operated by the same paper ribbon, which causes an exact facsimile of the ribbon to be automatically produced at a distant point, ready for use in operating a similar typesetting machine. These inventions were based on his “Selecting Device,” which he also patented.
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Shorthand is an abbreviated symbolic writing method that increases speed and brevity of writing as compared to longhand, a more common method of writing a language. The process of writing in shorthand is called stenography, from the Greek stenos (narrow) and graphein. It has also been called brachygraphy, from Greek brachys (short), and tachygraphy, from Greek tachys, depending on whether compression or speed of writing is the goal.
Stephen Pearl Andrews was an American individualist anarchist, linguist, political philosopher, outspoken abolitionist and author of several books on the labor movement and individualist anarchism.
A court reporter or court stenographer, formerly referred to as a stenotype operator, shorthand reporter, or law reporter, is a person whose occupation is to capture the live testimony in proceedings using [voice writing] and/or stenographic machine and transforming same into an official certified transcript by nature of their training, certification, and usually licensure. This can include courtroom hearings and trials, depositions, sworn statements, and more. Court reporting agencies primarily serve as production houses, and their clients include private law firms, sometimes local or state and federal government agencies, trade associations, meeting planners, and nonprofits.
Sir Isaac Pitman, was a teacher of the English language who developed the most widely used system of shorthand, known now as Pitman shorthand. He first proposed this in Stenographic Soundhand in 1837. He was also the vice-president of the Vegetarian Society. Pitman was knighted by Queen Victoria in 1894.
A stenotype, stenotype machine, shorthand machine or steno writer is a specialized chorded keyboard or typewriter used by stenographers for shorthand use. In order to pass the United States Registered Professional Reporter test, a trained court reporter or closed captioner must write speeds of approximately 180, 200, and 225 words per minute (wpm) at very high accuracy in the categories of literary, jury charge, and testimony, respectively. Some stenographers can reach 300 words per minute. The website of the California Official Court Reporters Association (COCRA) gives the official record for American English as 375 wpm.
Christopher Latham Sholes was an American inventor who invented the QWERTY keyboard, and, along with Samuel W. Soule, Carlos Glidden and John Pratt, has been contended to be one of the inventors of the first typewriter in the United States. He was also a newspaper publisher and Wisconsin politician. In his time, Sholes went by the names C. Latham Sholes, Latham Sholes, or C. L. Sholes, but never "Christopher Sholes" or "Christopher L. Sholes".
Gregg shorthand is a form of shorthand that was invented by John Robert Gregg in 1888. Like cursive longhand, it is completely based on elliptical figures and lines that bisect them. Gregg shorthand is the most popular form of pen stenography in the United States; its Spanish adaptation is fairly popular in Latin America. With the invention of dictation machines, shorthand machines, and the practice of executives writing their own letters on their personal computers, the use of shorthand has gradually declined in the business and reporting world. However, Gregg shorthand is still in use today.
The typographer was an early typewriter. It was a mechanical innovation created by William Austin Burt. The mechanism was operated by hand to provide a printed ink impression on paper. Burt was a government surveyor and needed to get official correspondence done quickly. He observed office workers overwhelmed with laborious tasks of handwriting lengthy official documents that took a long time. Burt had a mechanical background so was inspired to make a machine that would speed up secretarial work. A friend of his in the newspaper business furnished typeface letters from a printing press for his experimental mechanism.
Lyman Trumbull was a United States Senator from Illinois and the co-author of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Real-time transcription is the general term for transcription by court reporters using real-time text technologies to deliver computer text screens within a few seconds of the words being spoken. Specialist software allows participants in court hearings or depositions to make notes in the text and highlight portions for future reference.
The Stenographers' Guild, founded in 1937, is a non-profit organization providing vocational education and training in the area of Secretarial skills, Information Technology and Shorthand. It is located in T. Nagar, Chennai in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
Frank Edward McGurrin invented Touch Typing in 1888. He was a court stenographer at Salt Lake City who taught typing classes. He taught himself to touch type without looking at the keys, before challenging and won a competition.
The Munson Shorthand system was a form of shorthand devised by James Eugene Munson, who was an official court stenographer in New York State. It is a slightly revised version of Pitman shorthand designed to make it more systematic.
James Ogilvie Clephane was an American court reporter and venture capitalist who was involved in improving, promoting and supporting several inventions of his age, including the typewriter, the graphophone, and the linotype machine. He has been called the "father of the linotype machine", and the development of mechanical typesetting was largely due to his initiative.
Benjamin Pitman, also known as Benn Pitman, was an English-born author and popularizer in the United States of Pitman shorthand, a form of what was then called phonography (shorthand). He was also active in the arts and crafts movement in the United States.
The United States provided many inventions in the time from the Colonial Period to the Gilded Age, which were achieved by inventors who were either native-born or naturalized citizens of the United States. Copyright protection secures a person's right to his or her first-to-invent claim of the original invention in question, highlighted in Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution, which gives the following enumerated power to the United States Congress:
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
Oliver Dyer was an American journalist, author, teacher, lawyer and stenographer. A pioneer in phonography, he developed his own shorthand system which was the first to be adopted for use in the United States. It was used not only for courtroom testimony but also for recording political events such as the Free Soil Convention in Buffalo, New York, and sessions of the 30th United States Congress in Washington, D.C., in 1848. It was in the latter role that he became the first Congressional shorthand reporter.
James Curtis Booth was a United States chemist who was the melter and refiner at the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia for many years.
Henry Martyn Parkhurst was an American stenographer who served as Chief Official Court Reporter for the US Senate, an astronomer with pioneering work in Photometry, and an author. Parkhurst was an advocate of "Dianism".
