page_title: Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company
section_title: Early Watson era
hierarchical_section_title: Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company / Organization and leadership / Early Watson era
caption_attribution_description: English: Organization Chart of Tabulating Machine Co., 1917
context_page_description: The Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company was a holding company of manufacturers of record-keeping and measuring systems subsequently known as IBM.
  In 1911 financier and noted trust organizer, "Father of Trusts", Charles R. Flint amalgamated four companies: Bundy Manufacturing Company, International Time Recording Company, The Tabulating Machine Company, and the Computing Scale Company of America; creating a fifth company – The Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company.
  CTR was initially located in Endicott, New York The amalgamated companies had 1,300 employees and manufactured a wide range of products, including employee time-keeping systems, weighing scales, automatic meat slicers, and punched card equipment.
  CTR was renamed International Business Machines in 1924.
  The individual companies continued to operate using their established names until the businesses were integrated in 1933 and the holding company eliminated.
context_section_description: Thomas J. Watson Sr., along with 29 other NCR officials, had been convicted in 1913 of various antitrust violations for their roles in a widespread National Cash Register scheme to run used cash register retailers out of business (see NCR Corporation § Expansion). Watson's own extortionate writings were used as evidence against him. That lesson taught Watson to thereafter keep very little in writing. In 1914, having been fired from NCR Corporation and with a prison sentence threatening his future, Thomas J. Watson approached Flint, a leading financier, for assistance in finding a similar job. Despite his apparently perilous situation he was still very clear as to the type of job he wanted. He had already turned down a number of offers. He wanted control of the business for himself, and to be able to earn a share of the profits. Flint offered him CTR. Flint was, as described earlier, a great promoter of trusts and was presumably less worried about Watson's impending jail sentence. The other members of the CTR board were less sanguine, asking who was to run the company while he was in prison. As a result, they only gave him the title of general manager. After Watson had been at CTR for 11 months, the Appeals Court ordered a retrial. Although he refused to sign a Consent Decree, a new trial never took place, and he was duly promoted by the board of CTR to the position of president. Among the many things Watson brought to CTR from NCR was the motto Think.
caption: 1917 Organizational chart This style of chart, pyramids dividing into five parts, was required by Patterson. One of the many things Watson brought from NCR to CTR.[42]
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