Odhner Arithmometer
date: label: date made
content: 1907
name: label: maker
content: Maschinnenfabrik W. T. Odhner
notes: label: Description
content: The family of W. T. Odhner continued to manufacture calculating machines in St. Petersburg from the time of Odhner’s death in 1905 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. This is a pinwheel calculating machine made in that period.
label: Description
content: The machine has a brass frame painted black with eight metal pinwheels and a wooden base. Numbers are set by rotating the pinwheels forward using levers that extend from the wheels. Digits inscribed on the frame next to the rotating pinwheels to show the number set. The machine has no separate set of windows to show these digits.
label: Description
content: The carriage at the front of the machine has eight windows for the revolution counter on the left and 13 windows for the result register on the right. A thin metal rod attached above the windows of the carriage carries two decimal markers. Wing nuts at opposite ends of the carriage zero these registers. To release the carriage, one pushes down a lever at the front. A crank with a wooden knob on the right side of the machine rotates clockwise for addition and multiplication and counterclockwise for subtraction and division.
label: Description
content: A mark on the top of the machine reads: Odhner’s [/] Arithmometer. Another mark there reads: No. 7368. A circular inscription on the left front reads: MASCHINENFABRIK (/) W.T. ODHNER (/) ST PETERSBURG
label: Description
content: According to the donor, his father, the civil engineer Fred C. Dunham of the state of Washington, purchased the machine in October 1907 from the German agent of Brurnsviga, who had taken over two Odhner machines from a Russian agent. The older Dunham added the bar for decimal markers. The machine proved highly reliable.
label: Description
content: References:
label: Description
content: Accession file.
label: Description
content: U.S. Census records.
label: Description
content: Henry Wassen, <I>Odhner History</I>, Gothenburg, Aktiebolaget Original-Odhner, 1951.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: Russia: Saint Petersburg, St. Petersburg
topic: label: Subject
content: Mathematics
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Mathematics
label: See more items in
content: Calculating Machines
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content: Science & Mathematics
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Estate of Fred C. Dunham
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: MA.328418
label: accession number
content: 272526
label: catalog number
content: 328418
label: maker number
content: 7368
objectType: label: Object Name
content: calculating machine
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: brass (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: wood (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: steel (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: wood (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 13.5 cm x 37 cm x 20.3 cm; 5 5/16 in x 14 9/16 in x 8 in