The invention of the first robust calculating…

The invention of the first robust calculating machine has inaugurated the office calculation industry.

William Seward Burroughs had received a patent for his invention in 1888.

Early models in 1889 were unreliable yet he persisted and after much trial and error creates corrected models in 1891.

The machines were well-known in the banking industry by 1890, and adoption is spreading.

Burroughs, a mechanic's son, had initially worked as a clerk in a bank in his hometown of Auburn, New York, much of his job consisting of long hours reviewing ledgers for errors.

Burroughs had becoame interested in solving the problem of creating an adding machine.

There had been a number of earlier prototypes in the bank, but in inexperienced users' hands, those that exist would sometimes give incorrect, and at times outrageous, answers.

The monotony of clerical life being antithetical to his love and talent for mechanics, seven years in the bank damaged his health, and he was forced to resign.

Between 1880 and 1882 Burroughs was advised by a doctor to move to an area with a warmer climate and he moved to St. Louis, Missouri where he obtained a job in the Boyer Machine Shop.

Here he conceived his adding machine.

His drawings were made on metal plates which could not expand or shrink by the smallest fraction of an inch.

He worked with hardened tools, sharpened to fine points, and when he struck a center or drew a line, it was done under a microscope.

The "calculating machine" Burroughs had invented a (first patent filed in 1885) was designed to ease the monotony of clerical work.

After receiving the patent was 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 company continues to operate out of the Boyer Machine building in St. Louis.