Barbara Blackburn

Barbara Clay Henley Blackburn (September 25, 1920 – April 18, 2008) was an American clerical worker She was trained as a simplified keyboard demonstrator while attending Huff Business College in Kansas City. During World War II, according to Blackburn, she was timed by a "Navy girl" to type at 138 wpm on a Royal Standard typewriter with Dvorak keyboard. In a January 1985 story in the Los Angeles Times, Blackburn said she had recently reached 196 wpm. In May 1985, The Seattle Times reported that Blackburn said she had "attained speeds of 212 words a minute for a brief time" using an Apple computer keyboard and the Dvorak layout. In the commercial, captioned as the "World's Fastest Typist", she explains how she achieved the Guinness World Record for fastest typist at barely 150 words a minute, yet she was able to type nearly 200 wpm on an Apple computer.

Personal life Barbara Clay Blackburn (née Henley