In 1885, Dorr Eugene Felt of Chicago invented
the first mechanical multifunctional calculating machine that used
a keyboard to input data. Called
the Comptometer, Felt built the first model out of a wooden
macaroni box, meat skewers, wire, string, and rubber bands.
That prototype can be viewed today at the Smithsonian
Institution in Washington, D. C.
Felt then constructed a metal version the next year for
which he received a patent in March 1887.
Around that time, he formed a partnership with Robert
Tarrant to manufacture and market the Comptometer.
Four of the first eight machines were purchased by the U.S.
Treasury Department. An
illustrated ad of the machine in the July 20, 1895 issue
of Harper’s Weekly, under the headline “The Measure of
Progress,” featured a bookkeeper tabulating accounts at his
desk. The design of
the machine itself can be seen clearly in an ad
in the
October 12, 1907 issue. As
the ad text pointed out, all Comptometer functions were performed
on a keyboard without pulling a lever after each data entry, as
necessitated by the product’s rivals.
Comptometers were still in use in the 1950s at a leading
New York City department store and other businesses.
One of the leading lever-entry keyboard
calculators was the Universal Adding Machine manufactured in St.
Louis, Missouri. The
machine’s large handle on its right side was discernable in an
illustrated advertisement in the March 21, 1908 Harper’s
Weekly. The ad
text claimed that subsequent computations could be set up while
the lever was only two-thirds of the way back, thereby allowing
entries to be made more swiftly than with other lever-operated
models. The Universal
printed the calculations on a paper roll, but also had a paper
feed for loose-leaf or carbon paper.
The same year that the ad appeared, Universal Adding
Machine Company was purchased by the Burroughs Adding Machine
Company.
William S. Burroughs had also invented a
multifunctional calculating machine with a keyboard in 1885, but
did not receive a patent until 1888—a year after Felt was
awarded his for the Comptometer.
In 1886, Burroughs and three other men founded the American
Arithmometer Company to sell his invention.
After the product failed at several competitive trials,
Burroughs was awarded a patent in 1892 on an improved version
modeled partly on Felt’s Comptometer.
The company began seeing greater market success in the late
1890s, despite the death of Burroughs in 1898.
In 1905, the firm changed its name to Burroughs Adding
Machine Company, and sold a million machines over the next 20
years to become the nation’s largest manufacturer of adding
machines. An
eye-catching ad in the March 20, 1909 issue of Harper’s
Weekly emphasized “The Small Price for Enduring Accuracy:
7¢ Per Day.” It also offered a free efficiency manual, “A Better Day’s
Work,” with purchase of an adding machine.
Beginning in 1904, various manufacturers
produced machines combining the functions of an adding machine and
a typewriter, which were marketed with various descriptive terms,
such as “typewriter-adding,” “typewriter-billing,”
“type-bookkeeping,” and “writing-adding.”
In 1909, the Remington Typewriting Company introduced a
model with a Wahl Adding and Subtracting Attachment.
It was marketed
as “The Machine Which Does It
All,” listing numerous office duties that the machine could
handle, including bills, payrolls, invoices, and sales analyses.
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1)
July
20, 1895, p. 693, col. 2-3
illustrated ad, adding machine, Comptometer
2)
October
12, 1907, p. 1503, col. 2
illustrated ad, adding machine, Comptometer
3)
March
21, 1908, p. 27, col. 2
illustrated ad, Universal Adding Machine
4)
March
20, 1909, p. 34, col. 3-4
illustrated ad, Burroughs Adding Machine
5)
June
5, 1909, p. 2, col. 2
illustrated ad, Remington typewriter/adding machine
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