Bookkeeping Machines -- Remington Rand
Remington Rand
Remington Rand bookkeeping machines, like others, reflect the combination of ideas from several sources. In 1903, a St. Louis company began manufacturing an adding typewriter invented by Hubert Hopkins, the brother of William Hopkins of the Moon-Hopkins billing machine. James Dalton gained control of the firm, moved it to Missouri, and sold both adding and bookkeeping machines under the Dalton name. Meanwhile, the machinist John C. Wahl of Chicago and his associates took out several patents for improvements for adding and subtracting attachments for typewriters. These devices were incorporated in some Remington typewriters. Wahl soon turned his attention to manufacturing pens and mechanical pencils. In 1920, he sold his adding machine patents to Remington outright.
In 1927, Remington, Dalton and several other office machine companies merged to form Remington Rand. A long line of Remington Rand bookkeeping machines followed. The company also would take an interest in tabulating machines and then, as Sperry Rand and then Unisys, in computers.
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Remington Adding and Subtracting Typewriter
- Description
- This is a combination adding machine and typewriter. The upstrike typewriter has a QWERTY keyboard with two shift keys, a shift lock key, a tab stop set key, a back spacer key, and a space bar. Behind each of the number keys is a bar which leads up to the adding attachment. Keys in a row across the bottom front set the place of the first digit in a number. The typewriter has two carriages. The front one carries a single register that indicates seven-digit totals. The carriage in back has tab-setting devices. Behind this is the ribbon, the rubber platen, and the paper tray. The machine has four rubber feet and two rubber handles for the platen.
- A mark on the paper tray reads: Remington (/)Adding and Subtracting (/) Typewriter. A mark at the bottom front reads: Remington Standard Typewriter No. 11. Marks on the adding mechanism below the front carriage and on the moveable register read: WAHL ADDING MACHINE Co. (/) CHICAGO. The adding mechanism is also marked: PATENTED IN (/) UNITED STATES AND (/) FOREIGN COUNTRIES. (/) DATES & NUMBERS ON (/) BACK COVER. OTHER (/) PATENTS PENDING. (/) DISCOUNT. Marks on the back of the adding attachment give American, French and British patents.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1913
- maker
- Remington Typewriter Company
- Wahl Adding Machine Company
- ID Number
- 2000.0106.01
- accession number
- 2000.0106
- catalog number
- 2000.0106.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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Remington Model 85 Bookkeeping Machine
- Description
- Remington Rand bookkeeping machines, like those of several other American manufacturers, are the result of corporate mergers of the 1920s. The Remington Typewriter Company of Ilion, New York, sold a combination of its typewriter with an adding mechanism attachment made by the Wahl Company of Chicago in the early 20th century (see 2000.0106.01). From 1916 it marketed these products as “bookkeeping machines.” The Dalton Adding Machine Company of Norwood, Ohio, produced an adding machine with a wide carriage that could post entries and compute daily balances, but had limited typing capabilities.
- In 1927, Remington Typewriter merged with Rand Kardex, Dalton, Baker-Vawter Company and the Powers Accounting Corporation (a maker of tabulating machines) to form Remington Rand. The firm soon produced a new line of electrified bookkeeping machines, of which this is an example.
- The machine has a row of ten tabulator keys across the front, a row of digit keys behind them, a space bar behind this, and then three rows of a QWERTY typewriter keyboard. It has a wide carriage with a toothed metal bar that has 14 sliding mechanisms on it. Eight of these are “vertical totalizers,” sets of dials that show totals accumulated in different columns of the machine. Six of them show no digits. In addition to the vertical totalizers, there are two fixed registers on the right under the carriage that combine totals entered in the moving registers. The machine has a two-color ribbon and an electric cord.
- A mark on the machine reads: Remington (/) ELECTRIFIED (/) 85 BOOKKEEPING MACHINE 85. A mark on a red sticker behind the platen reads: TO SAVE TIME IS TO LENGTHEN LIFE (/) “STANDARD” (/) REMINGTON (/) TYPEWRITER. A mark on a metal tag on the side of the machine reads: SERIAL NO. Y121914 (/) CARRIAGE E9/16R (/) KEYBOARD 3112 (/) TYPE 406 & 62 (/) NUMERALS 1 F14.
- The stand for this machine has Museum number 1983.0284.01.
- References:
- McCarthy, American Digest of Business Machines, 1924. pp. 481–484.
- The Business Machines and Equipment Digest, ca. 1928, vol. 1, pp. 61–75. This does not include the Model 85.
- Advertisement, Nation’s Business, December, 1931, p. 45. This announces Remington Rand’s launch of an electrified accounting machine.
- American Office Machines Research Service, vol. II, 1939, Section 2.22. By this time the model 85 was not offered.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1935
- maker
- Remington Rand Inc.
- ID Number
- 1983.0284.01
- catalog number
- 1983.0284.01
- maker number
- Y121914
- accession number
- 1983.0284
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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Remington Rand Bookkeeping Machine Stand
- Description
- This metal stand, painted black, has four retractable rubber wheels. A mark on a metal tag on the crossbar reads: Remington Rand (/) MADE IN U.S.A.
- This stand is for a Remington Model 85 bookkeeping machine. It goes with 1983.0284.01.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1935
- maker
- Remington Rand Inc.
- ID Number
- 1983.0284.02
- catalog number
- 1983.0284.02
- accession number
- 1983.0284
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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Remington Rand Bookkeeping Machine on Stand
- Description
- After World War II, the office machine company Remington Rand invested heavily in the production of electronic computers, purchasing the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Company in 1950 and delivering the first UNIVAC computer to the U.S. Bureau of the Census the next year. Meanwhile, Remington Rand continued to manufacture typewriters, adding machines, tabulating machines and products like this one, a bookkeeping machine.
- The gray machine rests on a gray metal stand. At the front is a row of plastic tabulator keys numbered from 1 to 10, and two switches. Behind these is a row of digit keys numbered 1 to 9 and then 0. Behind these are a space bar and a typewriter keyboard. The square plastic keys have what appear to be paper stickers on them indicating numbers and letters. Behind the keyboard are five levers. There are two registers, each of which accumulates 10-digit totals. The machine has a wide carriage, a two-colored ribbon, and an electric cord.
- A metal label on the object reads: REMINGTON RAND INC (/) MADE IN U S A..
- Remington Rand Corporation merged with the Sperry Corporation in 1955 to form Sperry Rand.
- Reference: Nancy Stern, From ENIAC to UNIVAC: An Appraisal of the Eckert-Mauchly Computers, Bedford, MA: Digital Equipment Corporation, 1981.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1945-1955
- maker
- Remington Rand Inc.
- ID Number
- MA.336181
- catalog number
- 336181
- accession number
- 1977.0191
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
