Fowler Adder Patent Model
date: label: date made
content: 1863
name: label: patentee
content: Fowler, George B.
label: maker
content: Fowler, George B.
notes: label: Description
content: Some 19th-century Americans earned their keep as inventors and patent agents. One of them was George B. Fowler, inventor of this adder.
label: Description
content: This U.S. patent model has a wooden frame with slots for eight sliding bars. The frame is covered on the left and the right with black zinc plates. These hold the bars in place and also fold over the left and right edges of the device to form the sides. Each bar has a series of regularly spaced holes. The wooden pieces that form the slots are stamped from right to left 1 to 9. Numbers are entered by moving the bars from left to right. Totals are visible on the back of the device. There is no carry mechanism.
label: Description
content: According to U.S. Census records, Fowler was born in Long Island in about 1834 or 1835. In 1863, when he patented this device, he listed himself as a resident of Chicago, Illinois. By 1864 he had settled in New York City, and at the end of the decade he was a patent agent in Brooklyn.
label: Description
content: This small adder, patented July 14, 1863, was the subject of Fowler’s first patent (#39222). He went on to patent a variety of other devices, including a clothes and hat hook (#40923, December 15, 1863), wood-splitters (#53289, March 20, 1866), a game-box for ten-pins (#107030, September 6, 1870), a wagon-jack (#113285, April 4, 1871), an eggbeater and mixer (#256310, April 11, 1882), a picture cord and hook hanger (#357312, February 8, 1887), and an improved version of his adder (#432266, July 15, 1890).
label: Description
content: Production models of Fowler’s instrument survive. Fowler charged $5.00 for the adder. He garnered testimonials from lumber dealers, bookkeepers, and insurance companies, and publicized the instrument in at least one circular and in <I>Scientific American</I>. Correspondence from 1863 suggests that Fowler hoped to find agents who would pay substantial sums to market his machine, but there is no indication that this occurred.
label: Description
content: References: U.S. Patent 39,222, July 14, 1863.
label: Description
content: Robert B. Otnes, “Sliding Bar Calculators,” <I>ETCetera</I>, #11, June, 1990, p. 7.
label: Description
content: P. Kidwell, “Adders Made and Used in the United States,” <I>Rittenhouse</I>, May, 1994, p. 80.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Illinois, Chicago
label: place patented
content: United States: Illinois, Chicago
topic: label: Subject
content: Mathematics
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Mathematics
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content: Adder
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content: Science & Mathematics
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: MA.252688
label: catalog number
content: 252688
label: accession number
content: 49064
objectType: label: Object Name
content: adder
label: Object Type
content: Patent Model
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: wood (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: metal (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 1 cm x 22.5 cm x 11.5 cm; 13/32 in x 8 27/32 in x 4 17/32 in