Object Record

Images

1 of 1977

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Metadata

Object Name

Machine, Adding

Title

Burrough's Class 1, Model 9 Adding Machine

Date

ca 1910

Description

Vintage Burrough's Class 1, Model 9 Adding Machine. Tag on bottom front edge reads 'No. 9 - 142746'.

In 1875, the young William Seward Burroughs, son of a mechanic from Rochester, New York, entered the Cayuga County National Bank of Auburn as a clerk. There he spent long and tedious hours of adding numbers. He was already interested in solving the problem of creating an adding machine, after attending a mathematical lecture in 1872, but now it become an obsession. In the bank there had been a number of earlier prototypes of calculating aids, but in inexperienced users' hands, those that existed would sometimes give incorrect, and at times outrageous, answers.

Due to health issues, William Burroughs moved to St. Louis and took up inventing. From 1884, he attracted investors to aid in his development of a printing adding machine. By 1890, he had patented a machine and sent it out on trial. By the mid-1890s, the American Arithmometer Company of St. Louis was actively selling the Burroughs Registering Accountant, as they called the machine. In 1904, American Arithmometer Company moved to Detroit. The next year, it took the name Burroughs Adding Machine Company.

Owned By

Texas Electric Railway

Made By

Burrough's Adding Machine Company

Used By

Auditor's Office

Material

Metal/Glass

Dimensions

H-12.25 W-11 D-19 inches

Collector

Milam, D. W. & Powell, Jr., Elmer C.

Search Terms

Adding Machine
Burroughs
Office Equipment

Collection

D. W. Milam Collection

Catalog Number

CP.2005.CL.2-450