Mathematical Charts and Tables - Tables for Monetary Transactions
Tables for Monetary Transactions
American merchants, bankers, and employers have used a wide range of tables to ensure the accuracy of monetary transactions. Some of these tables were produced for stand–alone use, while others were designed to aid those calculating with machines.
As early as 1812, Joseph Jelleff of New York State patented a disc with printed scales used for interest calculations. Versions of this instrument sold at least into the 1830s. William B. Leavitt of New Hampshire copyrighted a similar wooden instrument in 1845. A few years later, Samuel S. Young of Ohio patented a linear instrument for interest calculations. In 1867, Albert Pierson of New Jersey patented a rather different device, in which the tables were mounted on rotating prisms, for the same purpose. Manufacturers of computing machines, such as Felt & Tarrant Manufacturing Company of Chicago and the Marchant Calculating Machine Company of California distributed interest tables to assist those using their products.
Those assessing and paying taxes also used tables. In 1879, Robert Levin Mudd, a county clerk in Illinois, patented a device to ease the work of correctly accessing taxes. In the 1930s, New York entrepreneurs introduced the Costometer, which was designed in part to assist in calculating newly introduced Social Security taxes. Tables also were used for computing both markups and discounts on goods sold, and for finding the total cost of sales, as when multiplying the rate of shipping freight per pound by the number of pounds shipped. Sometimes it is unclear precisely why units used were chosen, as in a handwritten multiplication table collected from a Massachusetts manufacturer of shuttles for looms.
"Mathematical Charts and Tables - Tables for Monetary Transactions" showing 3 items.
Mudd's Tax Calculator
- Description
- Doing the calculations associated with tax collection has inspired inventors from at least the 1600s, when the French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal invented an adding machine for that purpose. In 1879 Robert Levin Mudd (1837–1910), the county clerk in Bond County, Illinois, patented this tax calculator. It has sliding tables for calculating the tax due on property worth up to $10,000, at rates of 3 cents, 5 cents, and 25 cents per $100 value. Other columns give the total tax due if assessments are made at several rates for different projects. The instrument folds and fits neatly into a wooden case. This example is incomplete. Compare to U. S. patent 213234, dated March 11, 1879.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1879
- maker
- Mudd, Robert Levin
- ID Number
- 2009.3027.01
- nonaccession number
- 2009.3027
- catalog number
- 2009.3027.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Mathematical Tables for Use with a Comptometer
- Description
- The manufacture of computing devices has been associated with mathematical tables at least since the 17th century, when tables of logarithms were used in the manufacture of slide rules. In the mid-19th century, the need for new astronomical tables reportedly inspired the Englishman Charles Babbage to propose a difference engine, which was to print the tables it calculated. The Swedes Georg and Edvard Scheutz actually completed such a machine, and it was used to compute and print tables at the Dudley Observatory in Albany, New York.
- The commercially successful adding and calculating machines introduced in the 19th and 20th centuries were used to produce a wide range of tables. At the same time, machine manufacturers supplied their customers with printed tables to assist in routine calculations. These often involved reducing non-metric measurements to decimal portions of a given unit, as these tables suggest.
- These six tables, printed on cardboard, were produced for Felt & Tarrant Manufacturing Company of Chicago, manufacturers of an adding machine called the Comptometer. The copyright dates range from 1913 to 1925. All the tables have a photograph of a Comptometer in the upper left corner. Two show the hand and wrist of an operator wearing a suit (presumably a man), and two show the hand and wrist of an operator with a woman’s ring on her finger.
- The first table, Felt & Tarrant’s Form No. 8, illustrates the enduring importance of nonmetric measures in American life. It assists in multiplying the number of lengths by a unit length in engineering calculations. The table gives 10, 100, and 1,000 times inches and fractions of an inch to eighths of an inch. Results are given in feet, inches, and fractions of an inch. The table has no copyright date.
- The second table, Felt & Tarrant’s Form No. 36, was prepared by one U. S. Edgerton, the only author mentioned on the tables. It was copyrighted in 1913 and is for computing interest, insurance cancellation and discounts, with months and days expressed in decimal equivalents of a year. One side shows a year of twelve 30-day months (360 days total). The other side has a table for days only, that runs from 1 to 364.
- The third table, copyrighted in 1914 and 1915, is Felt & Tarrant’s Form 38. It was designed for the textile industry. Entries allow one to reduce drams (of which there 16 to an ounce) and ounces (of which there are 16 to a pound) to decimal portions of a pound. The table has rows for 0 to 15 drams and columns for 0 to 15 ounces.
- The fourth table, Felt & Tarrant’s Form 26, was copyrighted in 1917. It indicates the decimal part of a year represented by each date of the month.
- The fifth table, Felt & Tarrant’s Form No. 368, shows the decimal equivalents of fractions from thirds to 26ths inclusive. It has no copyright date.
- The final table, Felt & Tarrant’s Form No. 386, has measurements in inches, to eighths of an inch, given as decimal portions of a foot. Copyrighted in 1925, it assisted in calculations relating to lumber, steel beams, and angles.
- For another table used with the Comptometer, see 2011.3049.01.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1913-1925
- maker
- Felt & Tarrant Manufacturing Company
- ID Number
- 1979.3074.09
- nonaccession number
- 1979.3074
- catalog number
- 1979.3074.09
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Discount Table for Use with a Comptometer
- Description
- Manufacturers of adding and calculating machines distributed a variety of printed mathematical tables for users of their products. This example, printed in black on white cardboard, was prepared by Felt & Tarrant Manufacturing Company of Chicago, makers of the Comptometer adding machine. It was their Form No. 4 and lists the net result as a decimal of taking off two discounts in percent on an item sold. For example, the table indicates that if an item was selling at a 40% discount and then had an additional 10% discount on the price, the net price would be .54 times the original price. It was for use with a Comptometer. The form shows a Model J Comptometer, a machine produced in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Hence the date assigned.
- A mark at the top of the table reads: Discount Table (/) showing net of $1.00 after discounts, shown (/) at top and side, are taken off (/) to be used in connection with the (/) COMPTOMETER (/) (TRADE MARK).
- According to the donor, the table belonged to her aunt, the late Bessie Gold, who used it with a Burroughs calculator. Born in Russia about 1912, Gold came to the United States as a child. As an adult, she did office work in Richmond, Va.
- For other tables distributed by Felt & Tarrant, see 1979.3074.09.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1930
- maker
- Felt & Tarrant Mfg. Co.
- ID Number
- 2011.3049.01
- nonaccession number
- 2011.3049
- catalog number
- 2011.3049.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center