Carl Friden

Carl Friden (April 11, 1891 – April 29, 1945) was the Swedish born, American mechanical engineer and businessman who founded the Friden Calculating Machine Company (Friden, Inc.).

Carl Mauritz Fredrik Friden was born in Alvesta in Kronoberg County, Sweden. A company biography of Carl Friden from the 1960s or before stated that he was born Carl Bengtsson. Swedish custom at the time was to assume a new surname (instead of the patronymic). Dating from 1901 by decree, Sweden had regulated the adoption of surnames and largely eliminated the patronymic naming practice. He had chosen "Fridén" as his surname, the Swedish translation of which (frid, fred) would be "the Peace" .

In 1912, he graduated as a mechanical engineer from the Royal Institute of Technology in . Friden became a mechanical engineer representing the Swedish Match Trust. In 1913, Friden traveled to in London, England to assemble match machines for his company. In 1914, he traveled to Australia with the same purpose in mind, but was stranded there when World War I broke out. In the interim he worked on his ideas for designing a more reliable calculator. Two years later he headed to San Francisco on an American steamer to get part way home, but that is where he stayed. He found his place in the Marchant Calculating Machine Co. of Oakland within a year. When the U.S. Government made Marchant discontinue its current model because it violated some German patents, Carl Friden filled the void with his own model.

Friden became the chief designer of the Marchant Calculating Machine Company. While there he introduced his new design which reduced the number of calculator parts by one-third, thus increasing their reliability. Friden continued to develop the modified-pinwheel machines at Marchant during the 1920s. His machines were robust and quickly became popular.

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