Edmund Barbour
Edmund Dana Barbour (1841-1925), a businessman, philanthropist, and genealogist from Boston, Massachusetts, is a remarkable figure in the world of mechanical calculators. In 1872, he took out two very interesting US patents for calculating devices (U.S. patents №130404 and №133188), describing a machine, which seems to be the first representative..Read More
Archibald Stephenson
On 25 March 1873 Archibald Milton Stephenson (1844-1913), a railroad company agent (meanwhile performing tours as a traveling salesman) of Manteno, a village in Kankakee County, Illinois, took out a 17 years US patent №137107 for Adding Machine (see the lower patent drawing). Despite its very simple construction and operation,..Read More
Ferdinand Hebentanz
On 23 April 1873, Ferdinand (also spelled as Friedrich or Franz) Hebentanz, from Budapest, obtained a privileg (patent) in Austria-Hungary for several adding machines. In fact, in the patent are described three different devices: keyboard adding machine without engine, keyboard adding machine with engine (spring motor), and pointer (pen-setting) adding machine or..Read More
Gustavus Linderoos
On 11 August 1871, Captain Gustavus Linderoos (1818-1885) from Point Arena, Mendocino, California, filed a patent application for a simple adding machine, which boasted a limited ability to run subtotals while retaining the master total. The patent (US patent No. 140146) was granted on 24 June 1873. he adding machine..Read More
Cyrus Spalding
Cyrus Grant Spalding (1835-1918), a book keeper and inventor from Boston, Massachusetts, was a holder of two US patents for simple adding machines: patent №146407 from 13 January 1874, and №293809 from 19 February 1884. The second patent of Spalding (see the lower patent drawing) is for a device (an..Read More
Moses and William Pullen
Around 1870 Moses Pullen, 50 years old teacher of Southwick (near Shoreham, Sussex), commenced his work on an adding machine, with the help of his teenage son William. On 4 June 1874, British Patent No. 1948 was granted to Moses and William Pullen, of High Bentham, near Settle, in the..Read More
Frank Baldwin
Frank Stephen Baldwin (1838-1925), a native of Connecticut, devoted almost all his life to inventing and manufacturing machines. He applied for his first patent in 1855, only 17 years old, and took out numerous patents over the next several decades. At the beginning of the 1870s, while visiting the office..Read More