Dayton Cash Registers

Ohio History

Ritty Register

Despite its name, the Wright-Dunbar Interpretive Center also featured a number of not-as-famous Dayton accomplishments. We saw them first. You probably don't recognize this photo, but it is the very same cash register that appeared on my blog under another name: the Patterson cash register. Yes, I was confused too, but here's the story:

 

James Ritty owned a dining house in Dayton where the employees were always stealing money from sales. He and his brother began working on the idea of a machine that could record sales. Their first model resembled a clock, the clock hands indicating dollars and cents (imagine that!). They altered the design so that keys input specific money amounts, and patented it in 1879 as "Ritty's Incorruptible Cashier." James Ritty opened a small factory to manufacture his cash registers.

Overwhelmed by running two businesses, Ritty sold the factory to Jacob Eckert (a glass salesman) who formed the National Manufacturing Company. Eckert, in turn, sold the business to John Patterson in 1884. Patterson renamed it the National Cash Register Company (NCR) and proceeded to build his business. He improved the cash register further, adding receipt paper and mechanized components, with the help of inventor Charles F. Kettering. Did you know that NCR was acquired by AT&T in the 1990s? Now it makes electronic cash registers.