Bouchet Adding Machine
date: label: date made
content: 1885
name: label: maker
content: Bouchet, Michael
notes: label: Description
content: This is the second form of the key-driven adding machine patented by Michael Bouchet (1827-1903), a French-born Catholic priest who came to the United states in 1853 and worked in Louisville, Kentucky, from 1860. Bouchet was of an inventive turn of mind, devising automatic snakes to frighten his acolytes, and a folding bed and fire escape for his own use. He had considerable responsibility for the financial affairs of his diocese and, according to his biographer, as early as the 1860s invented an adding machine to assist in keeping these accounts. Of these devices, Bouchet patented only later versions of the adding machine, taking out patents in 1882 and in 1885.
label: Description
content: The machine added single columns of digits. Depressing a key depressed a lever and raised a curved bar with teeth on the inside of it. The teeth on the bar engaged a toothed pinion at the back of the machine, rotating it forward in proportion to the digit entered. A wheel at the left end of the roller turned forward, recording the entry. A pawl and spring then disengaged the curved bar, preventing the roller and recording bar from turning back again once the key was released. Two additional wheels to the left of the first one were used in carrying to the tens and hundreds places, so that the machine could record totals up to 99. Left of the wheels was a lever-driven tack and pinion zeroing mechanism.
label: Description
content: This example of the machine has a tin cover and a brass base and nine key stems arranged in two rows (the keys are missing). It was the gift of Mrs. Joseph S. McCoy, widow of Joseph S. McCoy, Actuary of the U.S. Treasury from 1889 until his death in 1931. McCoy and his predecessor, Ezekial Brown Elliott, were most open to inventions in adding machines. According to one of McCoy’s colleagues, the Bouchet machine was left in the office by the inventor in the year 1890 or thereabouts to be tried out. Bouchet did not return.
label: Description
content: This machine has serial number 960. Compare to 323620.
label: Description
content: References:
label: Description
content: Michael Bouchet, “Adding Machine,” U.S. Patent 251823, January 3, 1882.
label: Description
content: Michael Bouchet, “ “Adding Machine,” U.S. Patent 314561, March 31, 1885.
label: Description
content: Dan Walsh, Jr., <I>The Stranger in the City</I>, Louisville, Ky.: Hammer Printing Co., 1913, esp. pp. 49-70.
label: Description
content: Accession File.
label: Description
content: “Joseph Sylvester McCoy,” <I>National Cyclopaedia of American Biography</I>, 24: p. 382.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Kentucky, Louisville
topic: label: Subject
content: Mathematics
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Mathematics
label: See more items in
content: Adding Machines
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content: Science & Mathematics
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Mrs. Joseph S. McCoy
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: MA.310230
label: maker number
content: 960
label: accession number
content: 113246
label: catalog number
content: 316230
objectType: label: Object Name
content: adding machine
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: tin (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: brass (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 5.5 cm x 13.3 cm x 8.5 cm; 2 5/32 in x 5 1/4 in x 3 11/32 in