Before Underwood typewriter, there was Daugherty at least, and Prouty was.

The front-strke machine: Daugherty claimed the easy accessibility to the typeheads for cleaning. This seems also to mean easy access in case of trouble on typebars. On Daugherty article, Daugherty says by itself like follows:

"The ready accessibility of the type", "The disposition of the type with upturned faces, so that they are perfectly accessible for cleaning," - raycy - qwerty-history-jp

I found this on oz.Typewriter article and left comment on

Daugherty choose QWERTY. may be from the begining of 189X.  Why?

 http://typewriterdatabase.com/189x-daugherty-visible.1430.typewriter

Prouty proposed a different layout. If this was choosen, the adjasent typebar's sequential motion frequency would be lesser, even if in changing from up-strike to front-.

 No battle between front-strike machines: Daugherty( => Pitsberg ) vs. Underwood on keyboard-layout,              - QWERTY ？raycy - qwerty-history-jp