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Incorruptible сashier

In the beginning of the XIXth century a box for currency with drawers for banknotes and coins was characteristic for all retail shops. The industrial revolution resulted in the gradual growing of sales. And soon it became necessary for businessmen to keep exact count of the income they got. In 1883 James Ritty patented the first cash register.

In the beginning of the XIX a box for currency with drawers for banknotes and coins was characteristic for all retail shops. The industrial revolution resulted in the gradual growing of sales. And soon it became necessary for businessmen to keep exact count of the income they got. The first who tried to automatize money operations was David Brown. His ╚device for transporting goods, currency and other small stuff╩ was a rope skied across the shop. It had baskets. The seller got money from the buyer and sold them to the cashier in a basket and the cashier returned a cheque the same way.

Workshop in the building of Ritty's saloon. Photo of the late XIXth century [zoom (68k)]

The system was tried in a big furniture shop in Massachusetts in 1879 and became called for in all the developed countries. In 1882 David Brown sold the patent to the owner of the very same furniture shop William Lamson. The same year Lamson founded Lamson Cash Railway Company in Boston and tried to modify Brown▓s device. He succeeded. His ╚mechanical courier╩ was metals bend to a cashier on one side; cars with money moved along the metals. The device served for a hundred years. Other modifications were not claimed.

All these inventions were rather useful but they were uneven and too large. Brown▓s system was popular up to 1883 when James Ritty and his brother John Birch patented the first cash register.

James Jacob Ritty, born in Dayton, Ohio in 1837, was a barkeeper. He opened his first saloon in 1871. In 1882 he opened the Pony House in Dayton, which quickly became a local ╚hotspot╩ for dining, drinking, and gaming. Ritty, who called himself a ╚Dealer in Pure Whiskies, Fine Wines, and Cigars,╩ is said to have attracted a number of famous customers to his saloon, including Buffalo Bill Cody, prizefighter Jack Dempsey, and bankrobber John Dillinger. The bar was also very popular with salesmen who traveled by train because the saloon was located close to the train depot.

One of the biggest problems Ritty had at his bar was that some of his employees were dishonest, and would take the customers▓ money and pocket it, rather than depositing the cash that was meant to pay for the food, drink, and other wares. Ritty got tired of this behavior. In 1878, he came up with an idea for a possible solution to the problem while on a steamboat trip to Europe.

On the ship, Ritty became intrigued by a mechanism that counted how many times the ship▓s propeller went around. He wondered if something like this could be made to record the cash transactions made at the Pony House. As soon as he got home to Dayton, Ritty and his brother John began working on a design for such a device. Their first model was inaccurate. It looked like a clock with a keyboard, with hands indicating dollars and cents instead of hours and minutes. The bell signaled the purchase made. The second was not much better. But the third prototype was a success.

The third design operated by pressing a key that represented a specific amount of money. There was as yet no cash drawer. Ritty patented the design in 1879 as ╚Ritty▓s Incorruptible Cashier╩. He put the device in his salon and the gains became much higher. Brothers decided to start selling their device to bar or shop owners who were also tired of dishonest employees. They began making the devices at home but it turned too inconvenient and they opened a small factory in Dayton to manufacture cash registers while still operating his saloon. Shortly thereafter, Ritty became overwhelmed with the responsibilities of running two businesses, so he sold all his interests in the cash register business to Jacob H. Eckert of Cincinnati, a china and glassware salesman, who formed the National Manufacturing Company. In 1884, Eckert sold the company to John H. Patterson, who renamed the company the National Cash Register Company.

James Ritty. Photo of the late XIXth century [zoom (48k)]

At that time a certain John H. Patterson was mining was mining coal in the Coalton-Wellston area. In connection with his coal mines, Mr. Patterson operated a general store which sold goods to the miners. The store was in the building where the Wood Brothers now have their hardware and building supply store.

In two years of operation the store showed a loss of three thousand despite a good volume of business. In an effort to stop this loss, Mr. Patterson installed three of the new cash registers which he had heard of in Dayton. Crude though these machines were ≈ they were made of wood and did not have a drawer for currency, ≈ they did provide some check on cash and transactions and the loss was turned into a profit. The shop got income of six thousand dollars in a year. Patterson was so impressed with the possibilities of the machines that he and his brother bought 50 shares of stock in the company which made them.

By 1884 the business of manufacturing cash registers had already passed through several hands and was showing a loss. In the meantime Mr. Patterson had withdrawn from the coal business and was looking about for something to do. A chance meeting with a New England merchant vacationing in Denver helped to renew his interest in the cash register and sent him back to Dayton to buy the Company. This merchant praised the cash register as a tool of business and said that he could take a vacation with a free mind because he used these machines in his store.

Mr. Patterson bought the stock of the National Manufacturing Company for $6,500 and immediately regretted his purchase. At that time the ╚factory╩ consisted of one room, 40x80 feet with 13 employees. His friends told him he had bought a company that was losing money and a product that nobody wanted. He tried to sell the stock back, even at $2,000 less than he had paid for it. The seller refused to buy back, said he would not take it as a gift.

From that day on, Mr. Patterson▓s faith in the cash register never wavered. He often said and firmly believed that ╚The more we sell the more good we do.╩ Although he was always handicapped by lack of money in the early days, he embarked upon a program of product development, selling and advertising that not only built the cash register business but marked the man himself as at rue industrial pioneer.

Mr. Patterson did more than build cash register. He set new standards for working conditions, landscaped the ground around the factory, and built the first ╚daylight╩ factory with 80 percent of its wall space glass. He gave much thought to the development of good employee relations, started restaurants for employees, originated the suggestion system and pioneered in many other directions. Patterson continued to improve on Ritty▓s invention, adding paper rolls to record the day▓s transactions in each price range. This worked by building a hole puncher into each cash register while the paper would have separate invisible columns that would stand for cents or dollars. If the paper had two holes punched in the dollars column, for example, and 50 holes punched in the cent column, the total would be two dollars and fifty cents. When a transaction was completed, a bell rang on the cash register and the amount was noted on a large dial on the front of the machine. During each sale, a paper tape was punched with holes so that the merchant could keep track of sales. At the end of the day, the merchant could add up the holes.

Many cash registers included a key labeled ╚NS╩ which is abbreviated for ╚No Sale╩ and opened the cash drawer storing currency, printing out a receipt stating ╚No Sale╩ and recording it in the register log that the register was opened. Some other cash registers require a numeric password to be entered when attempting to open the register.

In 1894 Heintz Cash Register proposed to use a bird instead the bell so that the end of the purchase was registered by its cuckoo. But Patterson considered it to be the violation of the rights of his company, appealed to the court and the court prohibited the use of the bird.

Combined with rigorous legal attacks, Patterson▓s methods enabled the company to fight off, bankrupt or buy-out over 80 of its early competitors and achieve control of 95% of the U.S. market. In 1912, the company was found guilty of violating the Sherman Antitrust Act. Patterson, Deeds, Thomas Watson (the future President of IBM), and 25 other NCR executives and managers were convicted for illegal anti-competitive sales practices and were sentenced to one year of imprisonment.

During the period from 1888 to 1915 cash registers were introduced almost in all stores. One and a half million devices were sold since the moment of their invention up to the First World War. The millionth cash register was sold by National Manufacturing Company in 1911 and only in nine years the company sold the second millionth device.

Copper devices of the period are still available only in antique salons. But not only copper was used for making the mechanisms. Wood, nickel, silver and even gold were used. However copper prevailed as National Cash Register Company managed a large copper foundry. Improvements in the cash register followed from the business Ritty had created. For example, in 1906, while working at the National Cash Register Company, inventor Charles F. Kettering designed a cash register with an electric motor.

The First World War stopped the era of antique cash registers. Mechanics stopped being admiration. Inventors and manufacturers were not interested anymore in cash registers▓ design and decorations. The functionality became the most important. Patterson devices became cheaper. One could find a model at any cost in the company▓s catalogues.

Ritty died in 1918. His cash register concept lived on, however, as did his bar: Ritty▓s saloon saw service from 1882 until 1967, even through the Prohibition years. In those dry years, Ritty▓s Pony House Saloon became the Pony House Stag Hotel and the Pony House Restaurant and Cafe. Today the main factory at Dayton consists of 28 buildings and employs 12,500 men and women.

There are other factories in overseas countries and sales and service organizations operating through the world. The Company▓s products are used today not only in every type of retail store but in banks, factories, hospitals, hotels, government offices, and public utilities┘ wherever money is handled or records are kept. The bell which rang out on John H. Patterson▓s cash registers here in Coalton years ago when miners bought lamps or clothing or food has truly become ╚The Bell Heard Round the World.╩