Barbour Calculating Machine Model
date: label: date made
content: 1872
name: label: patentee
content: Barbour, Edmund D.
label: maker
content: Barbour, Edmund D.
notes: label: Description
content: In the late 19th century, several inventors turned their attention to designing better machines for doing arithmetic. This model calculating machine, patented by Edmund D. Barbour of Boston, was intended to multiply a number by a digit directly, rather than requiring repeated addition. Barbour submitted the model to the U.S. Patent Office, and received a patent for the invention on August 13, 1872.
label: Description
content: This machine consists of eight wooden cylinders that rotate on a crosswise shaft inside a wooden box. Each cylinder has around its edge 90 rows of cog-teeth. Each set of nine cog-teeth represents the multiples of a digit (zero multiples correspond to blank spaces). These cog-teeth have not actually been constructed. They are shown as pen marks on a slip of paper that extends around the first cylinder.
label: Description
content: The machine is set to a given multiplier by rotating all the cylinders with a knob at one end of the machine. This knob is missing. The first cylinder has on its left side a wooden spur gear with 90 teeth The other cylinders would have such gears, but they are uncut. Pulling out a wooden toothed rack below the gear advances it one-ninetieth of a revolution for each unit on the rack. Hence one can set a multiplicand.
label: Description
content: A movable carriage of brass on the top of the machine is supposed to be linked to the cylinders, so that when the carriage is pulled one unit to the right, the recording wheels advance in proportion to the figure represented on the edge of the cylinders. At present, the cylinders are not linked to the sliding carriage. Ther object has no maker’s marks. No successful product emerged directly from Barbour’s patents.
label: Description
content: Compare MA.309172, MA.309173, and MA.318168.
label: Description
content: The Edmund D. Barbour who took out this patent was probably Edmund Dana Barbour (1841–1925), a Boston native who reportedly gained a fortune in the China trade, before returning to Boston in 1871, not long before taking out this patent. Barbour went on to take out two further patents for calculating machines, to invest successfully in the Bell Telephone Company, to carry out extensive genealogical research, and to leave most of his fortune in bequests to Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Radcliffe College.
label: Description
content: References:
label: Description
content: Edmund Barbour, "Improvement in Calculating-Machines," U.S. Patent 130404, August 13, 1872.
label: Description
content: J. A. V. Turck, <I>Origin of Modern Calculating Machines</I>, Chicago: Western Society of Engineers, 1921, pp. 180–187.
label: Description
content: “Sharon’s Rich Men,” <I>Boston Daily Globe</I>, February 20, 1888, p. 6.
label: Description
content: “Fund for Three Local Colleges: Edmund D Barbour’s Will Gives Each $20,000 a Year,” <I>Boston Daily Globe</I>, March 13, 1925.
label: Description
content: J. Gardner Bartlett, “Edmund Dana Barbour,” <I>The New England Historical and Genealogical Register </I>, vol. 79, October 1925, pp. 339–344.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Massachusetts, Boston
label: place patented
content: United States: Massachusetts, Boston
topic: label: Subject
content: Mathematics
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Mathematics
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content: Calculating Machines
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content: Science & Mathematics
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: MA.309172
label: accession number
content: 89797
label: catalog number
content: 309172
objectType: label: Object Name
content: calculating machine
label: Object Type
content: Patent Model
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: wood (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: brass (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 14 cm x 41 cm x 13 cm; 5 1/2 in x 16 5/32 in x 5 1/8 in