Harold Cotton, Sr. Cash Register
date: label: date made
content: 1950s
name: label: maker
content: National Cash Register Company
notes: label: Description
content: The National Cash Register Company refurbished this machine and resold it in 1950 to Harold Cotton, Sr. in Greensboro, NC. The register has a single drawer and 26 keys. The keys allowed for sales costing only a handful of change to higher dollar amounts. Common purchase prices of $1 to $5 dollars had their own keys, making it quicker for the cashier to execute a sale. Importantly, the register kept a record of sales and had a lock on the cash drawer. Shop owners had long used cash registers as a tool to control access to money and keep tabs on clerks.
label: Description
content: This register tells a powerful story about black-owned, small business in the mid-twentieth century. The register served as the hub exchange in Cotton’s hat blocking shop and it was well-used. At this register both black and white customers paid for the services -- having a hat cleaned or their shoes shined. The profits held inside its drawer and recorded on the paper tape sustained Cotton’s family and the larger African American community.
label: Description
content: As a small businessman, Cotton used the income from his shop to move up the economic ladder and promote the welfare of the black community. Profits from the shop supported institutions within the black community, including St. Stephen’s United Church of Christ, the local black Boy Scout troop, and the NAACP.
label: Description
content: Black businesses such as Cotton’s, provided an economic foundation for African American communities that faced segregation, disenfranchisement, and violence. Black shops and storefronts provided shelter for the development of black public space in an otherwise hostile environment while the income from these business sustained a range of churches, schools and other community institutions. In many cases, the entrepreneurs who ran businesses, no matter how small, had the capital to fund political and social movements.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
topic: label: Subject
content: African American
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Retail and Marketing
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content: Work
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content: American Enterprise
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Harold Cotton, Jr.
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2016.0045.01
label: catalog number
content: 2016.0045.01
label: accession number
content: 2016.0045
label: serial number
content: FR880600-RR
objectType: label: Object Name
content: cash register
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: glass (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: metal (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 17 1/2 in x 13 1/4 in x 15 1/8 in; 44.45 cm x 33.655 cm x 38.4175 cm