CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Before Hugh Hefner created Playboy, he was a University of Illinois student writing for a campus humor publication called Shaft.
An Underwood Standard Portable typewriter that Hefner used in college, and later to write for Playboy, will be the centerpiece of a Rare Book and Manuscript Library exhibit of writers’ tools – “Writers & Their Tools: Parchment-Paper-Processors” – that also will include typewriters used by movie critic Roger Ebert, writer Carl Sandburg and novelist James Jones. The exhibit opens June 17.
“We wanted to do an exhibit where the emphasis was the objects. We have more than books and papers in the collection,” said Ruthann Miller, the exhibit’s curator.
The tools the authors used to produce their writing are works of art in themselves. Of the six typewriters in the exhibit, all but one are mechanical.
“The Sandburg one is beautiful. It’s black and shiny. There’s no rust on it,” Miller said. “As objects themselves, they are beautiful to look at.”
The exhibit also will showcase a typewriter used by Roger Ebert, the editor of the Daily Illini while he was a University of Illinois student.
The library owns the typewriters that belonged to Sandburg and Jones, and those that belonged to Hefner and Ebert are on loan to the library. Hefner’s typewriter was sold at auction in December, along with other personal items, and the purchaser of the typewriter, Mark Pepitone, agreed to loan it to the Rare Book and Manuscript Library for the exhibit.
Hefner used his college typewriter to write articles for the first issue of Playboy, including the letter from the editor in which he described the magazine and its intended audience. His daughter, Christie Hefner, said it was groundbreaking in that he identified Playboy as a lifestyle magazine – a word not in common usage at the time – and different from the men’s magazines being published then that mostly catered to outdoorsmen.
“He just loved great writing. I love that a number of the other writers whose typewriters are in the exhibit were also in the magazine,” Christie Hefner said, noting that both Ebert and Jones were published in Playboy.
Hefner said her father was sentimental and kept an elaborate scrapbook that started with a comic strip he’d written while in high school and in the Army.
“Early on, he’d developed a sense of being an archivist and maintaining things,” she said. “Objects, whether his Army uniform or the typewriter, were important memories, and I think he felt they were kind of cultural icons.”
The Rare Book and Manuscript Library owns typewriters used by Carl Sandburg and James Jones, which will also be on display. The Hefner and Ebert typewriters are on loan to the library.
She doesn’t remember her father using the typewriter during her childhood, but it reminds her of a promotion she organized for Playboy’s 25th anniversary. The tables at a fundraising event were decorated with typewriters from the era, purchased from antique stores and spray-painted silver to signify the 25th anniversary. The event was the first fundraiser for student fellowships in journalism at the U. of I. in Hugh Hefner’s name.
“The years at the university were important to him,” as he found early encouragement there for his writing, Christie Hefner said.
The Hefner display in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library exhibit will include the warranty card for the typewriter on which Hefner wrote his name and Urbana address, a copy of Shaft and the first issue of Playboy.
Sandburg used his Corona Silent typewriter to write the articles that were later published together as a collection titled “Home Front Memo.” The exhibit will include a copy of “Home Front Memo” signed by Sandburg; manuscript pages that include notes on the title page design and changes to be made; a photo of Sandburg at the typewriter; and a visor that belonged to him.
The Ebert materials will include the issue of the Daily Illini with Ebert’s first byline and the first issue for which he was editor-in-chief.
The warranty card for Hugh Hefner’s college typewriter.
The library has two typewriters that belonged to Jones, and one of them is electric.
“It looks more like an early computer than the old-fashioned metal typewriters,” Miller said.
Along with Jones’ typewriters, the exhibit will include a manuscript of his novel “From Here to Eternity” and a copy of “A Soldier’s Daughter Never Cries,” his daughter’s semiautobiographical account of the family’s time living in Paris.
The exhibit will also include a unique Yiddish typewriter, owned by the library, with Yiddish characters on the keys.
While the exhibit focuses on typewriters, it also includes the technologies that preceded their use and replaced them. The displays include parchment paper, quill pens and an inkpot; printing plates and metal type from a printing press; and a computer hard drive.
The exhibit will be open through Aug. 30.
Editor’s note: To contact Ruthann Miller, email ruthannm@illinois.edu.
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