James Fields Smathers (February 12, 1888 – August 7, 1967) was an American inventor who created what is considered the first practical power-operated typewriter.
He finished business school, taught shorthand and typing for a year, and in 1908 became typist, accountant, and credit manager to a company in Kansas City, Missouri.
Smathers realized during the course of his employment that there was a great need for some method of increasing the speed and decreasing the operator fatigue of typing, and it seemed obvious to him that electric power was the answer.
In 1920 he obtained an extension of his early patent because of the delay caused in his work by his military service in Europe during World War I.
Smathers joined IBM's Rochester staff in 1938 as a consultant and worked in development engineering at Poughkeepsie until his retirement in 1953.