American Arithmometer Company

American Arithmometer Company

Class 1 Adding Machine 1891
Successor	Burroughs Adding Machine Company
Founded	St. Louis, Missouri, United States (1886)
Defunct	1905
Headquarters	St. Louis, Missouri, United States

The American Arithmometer Company was organized in St. Louis, Missouri in 1886 by William S. Burroughs. Born in Rochester, New York in 1855, after receiving a high school education in 1881 and working in a bank, for health reasons he moved south. Burroughs began working in the Boyer Machine Shop in St. Louis, Missouri, constructing models for castings and working on new inventions. At that time he decided to design a machine for solving arithmetical problems. After submitting a patent in 1885 for an adding and listing machine with a full keyboard, on January 20, 1886 Burroughs co-founded the American Arithmometer Company along with Thomas Metcalfe, Richard. M. Scruggs, and William R. Pye. The fledgling company continued to operate out of the Boyer Machine building in St. Louis. Burroughs received a patent for his invention in 1888. Early models were unreliable yet he persisted and after much trial and error he patented a practical model in 1892.

In 1894, an article—clearly referring to the Burroughs Registering Accountant—reported that "An ingenious adding machine, recently introduced in Providence banks, is said to be infallible in results, and to do the work of two or three active clerks. Enclosed in a frame with heavy plate-glass panels, through which the working of the mechanism can be seen, the machine occupies a space of 11 by 15 inches and is nine inches high. On an inclined keyboard are 81 keys, arrange in nine rows of nine keys each. The printing is done through an inked ribbon." (The Bankers' Magazine, Aug. 1894) During 1895, sales climbed to 284 machines. That same year, Burroughs Adding and Registering Company, Limited of Nottingham, England was established. Three years later, the Company’s first manufacturing facility outside the U.S. was also established at Nottingham. The year 1895 also marked the Company’s first dividend payment. The Company continued to maintain an uninterrupted dividend payment record for over 100 years. An 1899 discussion of modern banking methods stated that "great assistance has been derived from certain mechanical labor-saving contrivances, among which I will mention the typewriter, the registering accountant or adding machine, and the telephone. The registering accountant is of comparatively more recent introduction, but I think I can safely say it has proved itself one of the most useful instruments even introduced to the banks." (Bankers' Magazine, Feb. 1899)

A 1900 ad stated that Burroughs Registering Accountants had been used "in the largest banks in New York City" for five years. A similar ad stated that the Burroughs Registering Accountant was "Used by over 5000 banks, small as well as large." An internal power struggle soon developed between Joseph Boyer and current President and General Manager Edmund G. Langhorne, who, upon losing took half of the employees with him to Universal Adding Machine, also based in St. Louis. Joseph Boyer, the owner of the machine shop, then became president of the American Arithmometer Company in 1902. In March 1905, Burroughs claimed that "there are over 22,000 of these machines now in constant use among banks, mercantile houses, department stores, factories, gas and electric light companies, railroads, express companies, lumber dealers, etc."