Lenore Fenton MacClain | |
---|---|
Born | Lenore Fenton July 31, 1912 Snokomish, Washington, U.S. |
Died | March 9, 2005[1]
Williamsburg, Virginia, U.S. | (aged 92)
Spouse | George MacClain |
Children | 1 |
Lenore Fenton MacClain was an American championship typist and typewriting educator. She won numerous international typewriting awards and international records in typing.
MacClain was from Snohomish, Washington. [2] She had undergraduate and master's degrees from the University of Washington. [3] She married George MacClain, a colonel in the U.S. Army, in the late 1940s.
In 1937 MacClain won a novice typing award with a speed of 87 words per minute. [2] [4] She won again in 1938, [5] and in 1939 she broke her own transcription record and earned the title of "the world's greatest secretary". [6] Earlier, she won the world championship on a Dvorak keyboard in Tenth Annual International Commercial Schools Contest in Chicago, June 19, 1946, by typing 131 net words per minute. [7] In 1956, Popular Science noted that she had won so many typing contests that she cancelled additional contests. [8] MacClain was listed in the 1971 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records for being the fastest typist in a one-hour timed test. [9]
She became one of the students of August Dvorak and upon switching from a QWERTY layout to the Dvorak keyboard layout, MacClain increased her typing rate from 70 words per minute to 182 words per minute. [10] [11] MacClain's increased typing speed is given as an example in the discussions regarding the benefits of the Dvorak keyboard over the QWERTY layout. [12] While it was first reported that she could type 180 words per minute, [13] this number later edited to be 108 words per minute. [14] [15]
In 1943, she starred in United States Navy typewriting training videos, where she demonstrated proper touch typing technique, useful typewriter tips and tricks (such as rapid envelope addressing). [3] [16]
In 1954, along with J. Frank Dame, she co-authored a book Typewriting Techniques and Short Cuts, which saw a few editions and was reviewed by the Journal of Business Education. [17] MacClain and her techniques are used as examples on how to type, [18] and from 1951 until 1958 she was a typing instructor at Bolling Air Force Base. [19] [3] She taught people as young as fifth grade typing using either the QWERTY layout or the Dvorak keyboard. [20]
MacClain and her husband moved to Arlington County, Virginia. She was the president of the Virginia chapter of the P.E.O. Sisterhood educational organization, [21] [22] and in that position led the state-wide convention in 1965. [3]
She died on March 9, 2005, in Williamsburg, Virginia, [1] and was buried at the Arlington National Cemetery in the same plot as her husband, who died on June 6, 1994. [23] Her Electromatic typewriter with a Dvorak Simplified Keyboard layout is in the collection of the National Museum of American History. [24]