American Arithmometer Company

American company

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June 18, 2026

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The American Arithmometer Company was an American business founded in 1886 to build adding machines. In 1892, William Seward Burroughs patented a practical and commercially successful calculator. This company was reorganized in 1905 as the Burroughs Adding Machine Company. The Arithmometer itself, an early calculating machine invented by Charles Xavier Thomas de Colmar in France in 1820, was the first commercial, mass-produced calculating device. It could perform addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, and was sold for 90 years.123

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William Seward Burroughs
Louis businessmen, he organized the American Arithmometer Company in 1888; after much trial and error he patented a practical model in 1892. Although the machine was a commercial success, he died before receiving much money from it. A year before his death he received the John Scott Medal of the…
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Louis businessmen, he organized the American Arithmometer Company in 1888; after much trial and error he patented a practical model in 1892. Although the machine was a commercial success, he died before receiving much money from it. A year before his death he received the John Scott Medal of the…
Read More