Remington Model 85 Bookkeeping Machine
date: label: date made
content: ca 1935
name: label: maker
content: Remington Rand Inc.
notes: label: Description
content: Remington Rand bookkeeping machines, like those of several other American manufacturers, are the result of corporate mergers of the 1920s. The Remington Typewriter Company of Ilion, New York, sold a combination of its typewriter with an adding mechanism attachment made by the Wahl Company of Chicago in the early 20th century (see 2000.0106.01). From 1916 it marketed these products as “bookkeeping machines.” The Dalton Adding Machine Company of Norwood, Ohio, produced an adding machine with a wide carriage that could post entries and compute daily balances, but had limited typing capabilities.
label: Description
content: In 1927, Remington Typewriter merged with Rand Kardex, Dalton, Baker-Vawter Company and the Powers Accounting Corporation (a maker of tabulating machines) to form Remington Rand. The firm soon produced a new line of electrified bookkeeping machines, of which this is an example.
label: Description
content: The machine has a row of ten tabulator keys across the front, a row of digit keys behind them, a space bar behind this, and then three rows of a QWERTY typewriter keyboard. It has a wide carriage with a toothed metal bar that has 14 sliding mechanisms on it. Eight of these are “vertical totalizers,” sets of dials that show totals accumulated in different columns of the machine. Six of them show no digits. In addition to the vertical totalizers, there are two fixed registers on the right under the carriage that combine totals entered in the moving registers. The machine has a two-color ribbon and an electric cord.
label: Description
content: A mark on the machine reads: Remington (/) ELECTRIFIED (/) 85 BOOKKEEPING MACHINE 85. A mark on a red sticker behind the platen reads: TO SAVE TIME IS TO LENGTHEN LIFE (/) “STANDARD” (/) REMINGTON (/) TYPEWRITER. A mark on a metal tag on the side of the machine reads: SERIAL NO. Y121914 (/) CARRIAGE E9/16R (/) KEYBOARD 3112 (/) TYPE 406 & 62 (/) NUMERALS 1 F14.
label: Description
content: The stand for this machine has Museum number 1983.0284.01.
label: Description
content: References:
label: Description
content: McCarthy, <I>American Digest of Business Machines</I>, 1924. pp. 481–484.
label: Description
content: <I>The Business Machines and Equipment Digest</I>, ca. 1928, vol. 1, pp. 61–75. This does not include the Model 85.
label: Description
content: Advertisement, <I>Nation’s Business</I>, December, 1931, p. 45. This announces Remington Rand’s launch of an electrified accounting machine.
label: Description
content: <I> American Office Machines Research Service</I>, vol. II, 1939, Section 2.22. By this time the model 85 was not offered.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: New York, Elmira
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: Bookkeeping Machines
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content: Science & Mathematics
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1983.0284.01
label: catalog number
content: 1983.0284.01
label: maker number
content: Y121914
label: accession number
content: 1983.0284
objectType: label: Object Name
content: bookkeeping machine
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: metal (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: plastic (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 38 cm x 74 cm x 58 cm; 14 31/32 in x 29 1/8 in x 22 27/32 in