Leavitt Calculating Disc
date: label: date made
content: ca 1845
name: label: maker
content: Leavitt, William B.
notes: label: Description
content: Printed tables have long offered bankers, businesspeople, and customers a way to calculate interest. This example consists of two interest tables, printed on paper, arranged radially and pasted to the two sides of a pine disc. A slotted piece pivoted at the center of the disc rotates, so that one can select the appropriate column of the tables. The first table gives the interest on sums ranging from 2 cents to $1,000 at a rate of 6 percent, for periods of from 1 to 7 days, 1 to 11 months, and 1 year. The second table gives the total value of an amount compounded at 6% annually for periods of 1 to 6 years.
label: Description
content: A mark on the front and the back reads: Entered according to act of Congress, in the Year 1845, by Wm. B. LEAVITT, in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of New Hampshire. A mark on the front reads: Stereotyped by Morrill, Silsby & Co.
label: Description
content: William B Leavitt is probably the astronomer and almanac author William B. Leavitt (1812–1895) of North Grantham, New Hampshire. He studied with his uncle, Dudley Leavitt, and took over Dudley’s popular almanac when he died in 1851. William B. Leavitt carried out the calculations for <I>Leavitt’s Almanac</I> until his own death.
label: Description
content: Reference:
label: Description
content: “Life Sketches of Leading Citizens of Merrimack and Sullivan Counties, New Hampshire,” <I>Biographical Review</I> vol. 22, Boston: Biographical Review Publishing Company, 1897, p. 475.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: New Hampshire
topic: label: Subject
content: Mathematics
label: Subject
content: Business
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Mathematics
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content: Mathematical Charts and Tables
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content: Science & Mathematics
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1980.0588.02
label: catalog number
content: 1980.0588.02
label: accession number
content: 1980.0588
objectType: label: Object Name
content: mathematical table
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: wood (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: paper (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 2.5 cm x 35.7 cm x 29.7 cm; 31/32 in x 14 1/16 in x 11 11/16 in